


Your concern is misplaced

by dirtbagtrashcat



Series: The Lies We Tell [3]
Category: Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Cognitive Dissonance, Confusion, Denial, Desperation, Detective Prince?, Exploring the arc of Akechi and Akira, Frustration, Grief, How are you supposed to feel after your crush kills you?, Hurt, Loki - Freeform, M/M, More like Detective PRICK, No I'm kidding I love him, Processing, Reflection, Slow Build, Slow Burn, The torturous courtship of two boys who are self-destructive in REALLY different ways, disorientation, inner conflict, inner turmoil, persona 5 royal spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:40:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23810008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtbagtrashcat/pseuds/dirtbagtrashcat
Summary: Akira and Akechi's torturous courtship, in review. We'll hit high points like "that feel after your crush murders you" and "what to do when your crush trusts you with his true self (but his true self is the literal god of deceit)." Will they kiss eventually? Assuredly yes! I could not live with myself if they did not.[P5R spoilers][also full disclosure that there will later be some mild sexual content! nothin too wild & it's all clearly marked with content warnings, but figured i should warn ya in case you'd rather steer clear entirely]-----It would all be okay if he could just call Akechi, and -- Akira glares at his laundry. And what, moron? Apologize? For being murdered? “I’m sorry, Akechi; I suspect that your stunted, shriveled conscience gave one last little kick at the sight of me bleeding out on the interrogation desk, and I hate the idea that it hurt you.”
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Persona 5 Protagonist, Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: The Lies We Tell [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1703317
Comments: 161
Kudos: 672
Collections: Marigolds Discord Recs





	1. Post-mortem

Akira can’t stop worrying about his murderer. 

Well. _Attempted_ murderer, if you want to be exact. Akira doesn’t really care for that sort of exactitude. Reality is as you perceive it, isn’t it? 

Akira didn’t get to watch himself die -- didn’t get to watch Akechi _murder_ him, because he wasn’t there. He was safe in the real world, drunk and dizzy on whatever ridiculous cocktail of horse tranquilizers the DSI are calling a “truth serum” these days. 

He can’t stop thinking about how Akechi might have gone about it. Did remorse twist his delicate features as he pulled the trigger? Did he apologize, unheard and alone, to Akira’s bleeding corpse? No, Akira answers easily, without hesitation. Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t, would he? Akechi would have boxed himself into believing Akira’s murder to be his conclusive victory over his fated rival. He’d be crowing about the accomplishment right up to the end -- squawking near loud enough to drown out the high, soft keen of his own grief. Until later, in a private moment of quiet, when his composure would slip as he found his hands trembling; he’d drop his glass and when it shattered he would find himself weeping over it, coming apart over nothing at all. 

(Or would he? Which is the true Akechi, the grieving survivor or the preening murderer? The answer, as ever, is _both_. It’s like one of those riddles: “one sphinx only lies, and one only tells the truth.” Except that both sphinxes are Akechi, and they're constantly talking over each other.)

Akira needs some space to make sense of it all. Which would be fine -- it’s not like he’s going to meet the bastard for drinks in Kichijoji anytime soon -- except that every TV station in Japan seems determined to broadcast Akechi’s smug, snide, princely visage for twenty hours out of every day.

Here he is now, as elegantly coiffed as ever. “And then," he’s purring at some moronic Ryan Seacrest type, "once the Phantom Thieves’ popularity was at its lowest, someone they thought was their greatest enemy lent a hand. That’s the same strategy used in romance, wouldn’t you agree?” 

Oh, my god, _no,_ Akira thinks furiously, his hands trembling with his desperation to give the other boy a hard shake. No , Akechi, _no one_ would agree with that! On the screen, he can see the interviewer nodding along uncertainly, but -- come on, Detective Prince. Only _you_ have a playbook of “strategies” for romance. And only _you_ would allege that deception sits at the heart of seduction. _But hey_ , whispers the traitorous voice in the back of Akira’s mind -- the one that lit up like a Christmas tree every time Akechi invited him out. _Whatever works, right_?

(“One sphinx kills you, and the other asks you out on a date.” Spin the wheel and see who you get.)

He fought Akechi once before, and won. Akira would wager that they both had an equally bad time of it: Akechi because he lost, and Akira because Akechi lost. But what was the alternative? To throw the match? Akechi would never forgive him.

And what did it matter if Akechi forgave him? Akechi _killed_ him. It’s an unwelcome observation; Akira thrusts it away.

“You all right there?” asks Boss, startling Akira out of his reverie. “You, uh -- you broke the plate.” 

Akira looks down. Sure enough, a crack has formed down the middle of his platter of curry. Brown sludge seeps through it onto the countertop below. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, blinking up at Sojiro. “I’ll clean it.”

“That’s all right, kid,” Sojiro tells him soothingly. “You’ve had a hell of a time lately, huh? I’ll get it.” 

He ambles toward the bathroom in his usual unhurried fashion, leaving Akira to stare down at the mess he’s made. 

From the other room, Sojiro calls out to him, his voice muffled by distance. 

“It’s Akechi, right?” 

Akira jolts in his seat, knocking half of his broken plate into his lap.

“Shit--” he hisses, catching the sharp-edged ceramic before it can hit the floor. “I--” 

Sojiro comes out again and snorts at the sight of Akira’s lapful of curry. 

“Go get cleaned up,” he tells him wryly. “I’ll handle this. Really, it’s the least I can do.” 

The curry is going to stain, but it _can’t_. Akira only has, like, three shirts. He pulls off his white polo and whips it bitterly into the sink.

It would all be okay if he could just _call_ Akechi, and -- Akira glares at his laundry. And _what_ , moron? Apologize? For being murdered? “I’m sorry, Akechi; I suspect that your stunted, shriveled conscience gave one last little kick at the sight of me bleeding out on the interrogation desk, and I hate the idea that it hurt you.” “I’m sorry, Akechi; I’m sure that the novelty of actually _feeling_ something was a terrible shock, but what’s done is done, and I hope you’re not torturing yourself over it.” “I’m sorry, Akechi, that the people who were supposed to protect you hurt you instead, again and again and again, so bad for so long that this is the only way you know how to love anymore.” 

Akira scowls at his reflection. God, he sounds pathetic. Even if he _could_ call, it’s not like Akechi would listen to him. He’s made that much perfectly clear. Akechi never acts on impulse; every choice he makes has been meticulously examined from every angle and determined to be the optimal path forward. Even in this, he had a choice. He could kill Akira and succeed at whatever mysterious goal he was racing toward; or he could spare Akira, join Akira, _keep_ Akira as his own -- whatever-it-was that Akira was to Akechi. Akechi weighed his options -- weighed Akira’s life against his own desires -- and Akira came up lacking. Akechi doesn't need him. He doesn't even want him. 

It doesn’t matter. Akira doesn’t need Akechi, either. The Phantom Thieves can take down Akechi’s master just fine on their own. And if Akechi shows up to make trouble?

...Well. They’ll cross that bridge when they get to it.


	2. Reveals and revelations

Akira senses him before he sees him. There’s a shift in the air pressure -- a familiar kind of scrutiny -- and Akira’s heart swells before his brain even has time to process the information. 

“Wait,” he says to the team, holding up one hand. The Phantom Thieves look wearily back at him.  By now, they’ve walked every inch of this oversized tugboat; they scored five letters of recommendation and thrice as many scars, new wounds forming before Morgana’s magic can knit the old ones back together. Even Ryuji, whose energy is usually unflagging, carries himself heavily. The team is  _ exhausted _ . They can’t survive another fight. 

But they’re going to have to.

A streak of ivory plummets from the rafters, and:

“Long time no see,” Akechi drawls, his eyes gleaming with malice, and something in his tone freezes Akira where he stands. 

He looks -- different. It’s not the usual sort of different, either: that tightly-coiled violence that Akira sometimes spied behind his mask of composure, when Akechi thought no one was looking. Or -- well. There’s that too. But beneath it, there’s something else: a wariness; a detached, intellectualized sort of curiosity. Akechi is watching him --  _ evaluating _ him, as if seeking to assess Akira’s feelings on what Akechi believes to be his one and only “true self." 

What does Akechi see in him, Akira wonders dizzily. What  _ are _ his true feelings? 

Akira stills his heart and looks at it. 

First and foremost, he feels relief: at the sheer sight of Akechi; at the assurance that Akechi has seen him, too; that he no longer bears the weight of Akira's murder. 

He feels hurt, too. When Akechi weighed the value of Akira’s life against the allure of his own goals, he deemed Akira’s existence expendable. Of course it  stings . Even now, Akechi’s cocky half-smile is a jagged blade twisting in a still-fresh wound. 

Beneath it all, though, thrums a thrill of excitement. Akechi has never failed to surprise him. How could he  _ not _ feel slightly giddy to find out what fresh hell Akechi has cooked up for him now? 

Akechi is still talking.

“In another life,” he’s saying archly, “perhaps we could have been rivals -- or even friends.” 

“We  _ are _ rivals,” Akira points out. He’s not sure even  _ he _ believes it. Akira has always competed with Akechi, but it’s not because he feels threatened, or even particularly competitive. He does it because Akechi likes it; and as part of his usual game, mirroring his companions to help them see themselves more clearly.

Akechi is still monologuing, but Akira can barely hear him over the pounding of his own heart. Soon they will fight and Akechi will try to kill him and Akira will try not to die and the whole situation makes him want to crawl out of his skin, makes him want to  _ shake _ the other boy and scream that “you  _ like _ me, okay? It doesn’t have to  _ be _ like this; affection doesn’t have to feel like this; attachment doesn’t have to be a threat.” But Akechi wouldn’t like that. It’s too direct -- it lacks subtlety. It’s not how Goro Akechi does things.  _ This _ is how Goro Akechi does things: violently. Spectacularly. Masochistically. Unrelentingly. 

And so they fight. Akira’s heart is in his throat the whole time, though even now, he dreams that maybe after they beat him, Akechi will listen to reason. With enough time, Akira can talk sense into him, even if they have to drag his unconscious body back to the hideout to do it. 

Akira knows he’s being selfish. Akechi killed Oracle’s mother, and Noir’s father, and ruined countless other lives. Why should Akira get to keep him just because he  _ wants _ to? Why should Akira get his way, just because losing Akechi would be torment? Just because, without Akechi, he may never learn to just  _ be _ , without feeling the need to be a goddamn therapist all the time? Akira is even a therapist to his  _ therapist _ , for fuck’s sake. But Akechi never wanted his help. Sure, Akechi wanted to use Akira, but everyone uses Akira. At least Akechi never lied to himself about it. 

Before now, Akira’s always enjoyed fighting. The Metaverse is the only place where he is truly,  _ only _ himself -- not a mirror of anyone else; not an empty well for others to hurl their emotions into, but a  _ person _ . As Joker, he can take up space in a way that he never could in real life. He can plumb the depths of his psyche and call on the sides of himself that, in civilized society, should never have seen the light of day: glib, wry mirth or bright gleaming righteousness or even the black-hearted hunger he tastes when he calls Pisaca or Abbadon. Akira  _ loves _ being here. 

But he doesn’t love this. 

Fighting Akechi is  _ torture _ . Akira can see the way that he’s tearing himself apart -- self-destructing as brilliantly as an imploding star, and thrice as explosively. Akechi hurts so fiercely that even Akira’s  _ friends _ can see it, and they -- while wonderful -- aren’t exactly known for their keen perception. 

“We both hate the same guy,” Ann asks furiously, desperately, in a lull in the action. “Why do we have to go against each other??” 

Her words make Akira’s heart swell. God, but he loves her so much. It’s the same for the rest of the Thieves. Even when facing their cruelest, bitterest enemy, they’re still generous enough to consider his own victimhood; flexible enough to see him in perspective; strong enough to offer him a path forward. They’ve all done things they aren’t proud of, and their time together has taught them that it’s never too late to change. Still, believing in a principle and  _ acting _ on it are altogether different things. Akira can’t believe how proud he is. 

Not that it makes any difference. When the Thieves extend their hands, Akechi snaps at their fingers like a rabid dog. He’s walled himself in -- dug his own grave deep enough to ensure that he can never climb back out.  _ Well, _ Akira thinks bitterly, swapping Rangda for Titania in time for some much-needed buffs.  _ Then I’ll just have to climb in after you and carry you out myself. _

It takes some doing, but at last, Akechi falls. It’s so close to being over that Akira can  _ taste _ it. He can taste the victory curry they’ll share afterwards, and the way Akechi will come around slowly, like a feral cat, because really all he needs is patience and time and--

Something’s wrong.

It’s not over, after all, Akira realizes miserably, as ribbons of black-and-red un-light flicker and dance over Akechi’s wracked, bleeding form. In hindsight, of course it isn’t. Akechi never fails to surprise him, right? 

"Here," Akechi announces maniacally, meeting Akira's solemn gaze with his own wild one. His tone is steady, but Akira can see the whites all the way around his eyes. "Let me show you who I  _ really _ am!"

Two Personas, Akira thinks numbly, as Loki crackles out of the empty air above their fallen foe. Akechi has  _ two _ Personas. He’s a Wild Card, a Trickster just like Akira. God, but Akira should have known, shouldn’t he? Akechi was never only one thing. 

Clad in black and sporting a Persona as vivid and brilliant and cruel as he is, this Akechi is a storm of hurt and fury, hissing and spitting and spraying phlegm and venom in all directions. If Akira didn’t know him so well, maybe he would even feel betrayed, and he does, a little. Still, in spite of how low Akechi looks and how deeply Akira aches for him, he can’t help but feel a kind of thrill at the... vulnerability? Yeah, the vulnerability of it. After an entire year of pretense and performance and outright deception, Akechi has finally trusted him with his true self. 

Faintly, as though from a great distance away, he can hear his teammates processing the change. 

“If this is true,” Morgana says frantically, “then everything -- even his appearance was a fake!”

_ No _ , Akira wants to argue.  _ It’s not true; Personas can’t lie, they’re  _ **_both_ ** _ true. He may wear two masks, but that doesn’t make one real and one a lie. He’s like me, he’s just like me-- _

But this isn’t the place. His friends need his conviction; they need his certainty. He sweeps Titania away and replaces her with the staid solidity of Ariadne.

“Let’s do this,” Akira says softly, and attacks. 

##

He’s gone.

Except that he’s not really gone, because he  _ can’t _ be gone. Akechi was -- Akechi  _ is _ the most resilient bastard that Akira’s ever known. He’s like a human cockroach, if cockroaches were handsome and clever and deadly. 

He’s not gone. He’s -- He was fighting Shido’s cognition of him, and Shido would have underestimated him, because everyone underestimates Akechi. Everyone wants him to be just one thing; no one understands that Akechi could never be limited like that. Shido thought that Akechi was just some -- some kind of supernatural assassin with daddy issues. Shido didn’t understand that the stiff, courtly nobility that Akechi affects is  _ real _ ; that his performed elegance is as real as his murderous frenzy and his furious, festering resentment. Akechi was -- Akechi  _ is _ a villain  _ and _ a hero, and he could never be pinned down or cornered, and he would never let things end with the Phantom Thieves beating him. Akechi could beat Shido’s cognition of Akechi with both hands tied.

Besides, the rules are different in the Metaverse, right? Even if the cargo hold  _ was _ flooded, who’s to say that you need to breathe in the Metaverse at all? You’re just a cognition of yourself, after all; that’s why Joker can leap twelve feet in a single bound even though Akira needs to catch his breath after a short sprint. Akechi would understand that. Akechi thought -- Akechi  _ thinks _ that he’s invulnerable, and so he really is, in the Metaverse, at least. He’d have swum out of the hold and breached like a goddamn dolphin.

The last time they saw each other, before Akechi killed him and everything went to hell, Akechi threw his glove at him, and Akira caught it. 

It was warm in Akira’s hands.

Then Akechi had to explain about how it’s a tradition, in Western countries, to throw your glove at someone to challenge them to a duel. Akira had never heard about that, but he’d heard about other traditions, like giving someone your glove as a token of your favor, or leaving your glove at someone’s house as an excuse to come back.

“I accept,” he’d told him at the time. Anything to keep him coming back. 

Akechi will come back. He’d promised he would. He  _ has  _ to.

Akira just has to have faith.


	3. Samarecarm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [PERSONA 5 ROYAL SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT]
> 
> [plus more vanilla P5 spoilers obviously]
> 
> [THIS IS UR FINAL WARNING]
> 
> [I'M SERIOUS YALL]
> 
> -  
> \--  
> \---  
> \--  
> -
> 
> Right when Akira needs him most, Akechi comes back from the dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick little transitional chapter this time as I charge toward the really meaty stuff in the new Palace! As stated, you can expect P5R spoilers from here on out.

It’s been a tough week. 

Akira killed a god this week. Akira orchestrated the largest-scale prison break in human history -- freed the repressed consciousness of all of Japan (possibly all the world? He’s never been clear on the scale). Akira fended off humanity’s ruin; he stood by his convictions and he won an unwinnable game. Akira is  _ devastatingly _ tired. 

By all rights, he should sleep like the dead. Humanity is saved, after all. His work is done; from here on out, it’s up to the  _ non _ -shitty adults to enforce justice. The evil god is dead, and all is right in the world. 

But all is not right, because Akira didn’t save  _ everyone _ . Akechi’s still missing in action, and that means Akira still can’t sleep. 

It’s Christmas Eve, but what’s Christmas Eve? Just another day to spend anxiously checking the news, waiting for any whisper of the return of the dethroned Detective Prince. It’s bitterly cold in his room. The little space heater is doing its best, but the attic over Leblanc isn’t designed for human habitation; the wind whips through the walls like there’s nothing there at all. 

“...Akechi…”

Akira’s ears perk up -- but it’s just the TV downstairs, where some bullshit talking head is spouting nonsense about the late Detective Prince. 

“--only did he lie about catching the Phantom Thieves,” he’s saying, “but he was  _ also _ wrong about their crimes! What else did the so-called Detective Prince lie about? Some say he was working with Shido from the--”

Akira claps his hands over his ears. It’s fruitless: he can still hear the bastard droning on, even when he presses so hard that his ears start to ring. He can’t take it anymore, he  _ can’t _ . 

If Morgana was here, he would ask Akira what’s wrong. He would listen and he wouldn’t judge, and if Akira had to cry, he’d curl up in his lap, purring so hard that Akira could feel the vibrations through his shirt, and eventually the tears would dry up and he could finally rest. Akira never got too cold with Morgana curled up on his chest. Even when the winter wind nipped at his ears and rattled his windows, the heat of Morgana’s soft little form seeped in through belly and radiated out into his toes; and when he woke up too cold to move, it was Morgana who whipped him into shape, chiding and wheedling until he’d forced himself out of bed to dig for another blanket. But Morgana isn’t here anymore. How is he supposed to sleep without Morgana? 

Akira gives up. 

“Going for a walk,” he calls to Sojiro on his way out the door. Sojiro’s eyebrows go up.

“On Christmas E--”

The rattle- _ jingle _ of the door cuts off the end of his question. 

It’s even colder outside. 

_ (If Morgana was here, he would stretch himself over Akira’s shoulders like a living scarf; his purr would rattle gently against Akira’s neck.)  _

Akira pulls his coat tighter and starts walking. 

He ends up in Shibuya. He doesn’t even remember getting on the  _ train _ . Exhaustion blurs his vision, smearing the city lights into a haze of streaks in every shade of neon: electric blue and candy pink and lurid lilypad green. He half-expects to wake up in bed; reaches unconsciously toward his sternum, where Morgana used to sleep. But of course there’s nothing there. His heart thuds hollowly against his breastbone.

“--on Christmas Eve,” he half-hears, and realizes that they’re talking to him. Akira blinks against the fog, forces his vision to clarify. 

“Sae-san,” he says. 

“Thank you for taking my request,” she tells him politely. He gives her another hollow stare. Now that he thinks about it, Akira  _ does _ remember getting a text from her. Maybe that’s why he ended up here? He gives up halfway through the thought, feeling utterly uncurious. It’s hard to care. 

“I called you here for a reason,” she says briskly, and Akira feels a wash of gratitude for her directness. He doesn’t think he could bear it if she’d wanted to make  _ small talk _ . “I want you to turn yourself into the police.” 

“What?” he says dumbly, wondering if he’s somehow misheard. But he hasn’t. The police need his testimony, Sae explains, in order to bag Shido. Shido’s crimes were primarily committed in the Metaverse, after all; a place that no longer even  _ exists _ anymore, and would be hard to explain in a court of law even if it  _ were _ still intact. 

But there’s a downside. If he turns himself in, he’ll definitely be arrested. 

“Makes sense,” Akira says vaguely. Sae gives him another worried stare. 

"I'll close all the cases surrounding Shido," she continues. "I intend to expose them all. It's to prevent humanity from getting distorted again. That's what you want too, isn't it?" 

What Akira wants? What  _ Akira _ wants is for his partner to come back; for Morgana to settle into his place of honor on Akira’s shoulder. What Akira wants is to apologize to Akechi -- to hear him out  _ in full _ , and find out exactly what hurt him bad enough to so thoroughly warp his sense of justice. Akira wants to hear Akechi’s voice again -- each syllable crisp as an autumn breeze; each word saturated with an entire  _ ocean _ of sinister subtext; each sentence somehow profoundly condescending and meticulously polite all at once. Akira wants to see Akechi’s mouth quirk to one side in that way that manages to be equal parts self-aware and self-obsessed and self-loathing, wry and bemused and  _ dizzying _ . Akira wants to reach out and touch him again, just once.

But he can’t, because Akechi is gone. 

May as well go to jail instead.

“Sure,” he says dully, to Sae. 

“There’s no need for that,” _someone_ cuts in, in a tone so familiar that every nerve in his body fires at once, so that suddenly Akira is _electrically_ _awake_ for the first time in days. 

Akira feels his face go slack; feels his muscles go limp, as though his body is shutting down to protect itself from the intolerable cruelty of hope. But there's no mistaking that slow, even stride, meticulously designed to appear languid to those who don't know better. There’s no mistaking the stubborn jut of his chin; the sharp line of his shoulder; the perfectly tousled lock of hair that falls lightly over his brow. It could be no one else. 

_ Akechi _ , he tries to say, but his brain can’t seem to make his mouth cooperate. 

“You…” Sae says wonderingly, caught between relief and alarm. 

Akechi nods casually. He is, as always, the very  _ picture _ of composure. 

"If they get their hands on the perpetrator," he says smoothly, "there'll be no need for him to turn himself in, no?"

Akira’s mouth finally catches up with his mind. 

“You’re--” he says numbly, before his tongue stumbles again. “--alive?” he manages to finish, in a show of Herculean resolve. Now, at last, Akechi looks directly at him, and Akira wonders if it’s possible to actually die of relief. 

“That appears to be the case,” Akechi says primly, with only a ghost of his usual disdain. Akira can feel his hands moving on their own, reaching toward Akechi as though possessed; he folds his traitorous fingers over his palms and squeezes. 

“You say there’s no need for him to testify,” Sae says, pulling Akechi’s honeyed gaze away, and something mewling and pathetic curled round Akira’s spine mews piteously at the loss. He wants to do something -- anything -- to draw Akechi’s attention again, only his tongue seems to have stopped working, and he cannot seem to wring life back into it. 

Much too late, Akira’s brain replays the Detective Prince’s words.  _ If they get their hands on the perpetrator _ , he said. Oh my god, Akira realizes miserably, he’s going to turn himself in. But-- But he only just got back! Why would Akechi come find him when  _ Sae _ ’s here? Why wouldn’t he come to Leblanc first? Why would he show up  _ now _ , of all times? 

“Why?” Akira manages to blurt, cutting in on Akechi’s nonchalant monologue. For a moment, Akechi looks at him with actual surprise. 

“If I had to explain myself,” he says coolly, after a beat, “I'd say that it's simply personal principle that I repay my debts."

You don’t owe me anything, Akira thinks miserably. You already gave me enough, you saved my life;  _ I’m _ the selfish one for always wanting more. 

“Well, then,” Akechi says primly, as though he were wrapping up a meeting and not offering himself up to the judicial chopping block like some elegantly-dressed sacrificial lamb. “Shall we?” 

_ Wait-- _

But it’s too late. Akechi is already walking away, following after Sae like a diligent little duckling and offering up an ironic little smile every time she peers suspiciously back at him.

_ No _ , Akira thinks miserably, and now (too late) he reaches for Akechi in earnest.  _ No! This isn’t how it’s supposed to go; please, just come back, please _ . But he’s only talking to himself. For what feels like the hundredth time this month, Akechi is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for all the sadboi stuff!! Don't worry the next chapter's about to get downright ROWDY


	4. Like a dream, or a nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [P5R SPOILERS] 
> 
> Akechi and Akira strike an unlikely accord (again).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise, it's two chapters in one day! What can I say, I'm addicted to this ship. Hope ya'll enjoy this one! It should be significantly more fun than the last one ;)

This is the weirdest day of Akira’s life.

Akira killed a god this month. Akira killed a god, and obliterated the physical manifestation of the repressed human subconscious, and welcomed his friends to a Room that he’d historically visited in his  _ dreams _ . Akira watched his pet cat turn into a goddamn Angel of Light for fuck’s sake, and  _ still _ this is, without question, the weirdest day of Akira’s life. 

Akira woke up in bed with an uncomfortably cute boy who he’s  _ increasingly  _ convinced may be his aforementioned Angel-of-Light cat. He went downstairs to find his kid sister’s dead mom alive and well (and acting like  _ he’s _ the crazy one). Before he had time to  _ begin _ to grapple for his sanity, Goro Akechi -- who, regardless of how happy Akira is to see him, should really be in prison right now -- swung open the door of Leblanc and politely explained that he was here for Akira. 

“Go on, then,” the popstar-slash-Morgana tells Akira, giving him a knowing nudge with one of his undeniably-human elbows. “Why don’t you two get some… fresh air?” 

“What,” Akira asks succinctly, when the two of them are safely outside, “the fuck?” 

Akechi snorts. 

“Perfect,” he says coolly. “I’d hoped as much. You’re still sane, like me. Then there’s still hope.” 

Akechi looks the same, and also different. He’s as poised as ever, but his elegance has been complicated by a distinctly  _ feral _ undercurrent. A mocking twist of his lip warps his usual prim smile into a roguish smirk; a knowing crease under his eye lends a mischievous gleam to his supercilious stare. This is the Akechi that Akira knew, plus the Akechi that Akira always imagined lurked just under the surface. It’s the handsome Detective Prince, hardened by a lifetime of hurt and distrust into some kind of rough-and-tumble vigilante. It’s Batman  _ and _ the Joker. 

It’s enough to make the hair on the back of Akira’s neck stand up straight.

The world is wrong, Akechi and Akira are quick to agree. The dead are alive; cats are boys, and convicted serial murderers are free to walk the streets. (Akira tries and fails not to look too happy about that last one.) What is there to do but to gather the troops -- the  _ troop _ , he supposes he should say; the rest of the Thieves have lost their wits, so all he’s got is Kasumi -- and set out for the newly-formed Palace?

###

“Uh,” Kasumi says, bug-eyed, when she sees that Akira brought Akechi along for the ride.

Akechi sighs impatiently, pinning her under one of his trademark disinterested glares. Akira makes a mental note to apologize to Kasumi later. 

“Would it help you grasp the situation if I told you I had the same powers that  _ he _ does?” Akechi drawls, giving Akira a conspiratorial glance that makes his neck feel hot. The true meaning of his sentence goes beyond Kasumi’s current comprehension. It’s not just that Akechi is a Persona user. He has the same powers that Akira does. Akechi is a Trickster, just like him. 

It’s a cold winter’s day, but Akira can feel sweat beading on his brow. He swipes at it hastily with his sleeve. God help him, but he’d better get his shit together and  _ soon _ , or he’ll only be a liability in their infiltration. 

By the time they start up the Nav, he’s nearly got his composure back. He’s not Akira anymore. Now he’s Joker, and Joker is everything that Akira isn’t: confident. Mysterious. Composed. Joker never second-guesses himself, or sweats like an idiot teenager just because his doomed crush has somehow, impossibly, come back from the dead. 

Akira glances toward Akechi to make an idle observation about the Palace, and the words die in his throat.

Akechi looks back at him through a ravening maw of black chrome. Two wickedly-sharp spines jut from his browbone, curving back over his skull like ram’s horns. Indigo-and-charcoal stripes squeeze his delicate frame, making his long, slender legs look even longer. Akechi’s dark suit is as tight as Ann’s catsuit, Akira realizes, with a profound sense of dread. The slick fabric is so thin that Akira can see every line of Akechi’s body, from the sharp hollow behind his collarbone to the crease where his thigh meets his groin. 

From behind twin slivers of red glass, Akechi’s hazel eyes meet Akira’s own, and Akira breaks into a cold sweat.  _ Akechi isn’t lying to him anymore _ . 

Akechi’s respectable, genteel mask is a thing of the past. Gone are Robin’s gleaming tassels and buttons and cufflinks; in their place, Akechi wears a shroud of darkness adorned with the blood of his enemies. Akechi is done playing pretend. This time, he’s charging ahead at full power and expecting Akira to keep up. 

“Ah,” Kasumi says uncertainly, looking Akechi up and down. “By the way, um.” 

“What’s the matter?” Akechi asks, lifting his chin arrogantly. 

“I’m not sure how to put it,” Kasumi says sheepishly, staring at the ground between her feet. Akira takes pity on her. 

“Wearing that one, are you?” he asks Akechi, who rewards his efforts with a savage grin. 

“Oh, this old thing?” he drawls. “Yoshizawa-san aside, there's no reason for me to uphold the pretense of a righteous, sincere Detective Prince, is there?” 

There’s a million things Akira wants to ask. When did you awaken to Robin? What made you decide that your first Persona was only a  _ pretense _ ? What happened that pushed you to awaken to Loki? And why do  _ I _ only get a matching outfit for Arsene, anyway? 

“There’s no time for more chatter,” Akechi says impatiently, sweeping confidently forward. Then, glancing over his shoulder with an undeniably flirtations gleam: “I hope you intend to keep up.”

Akira can see every muscle in Akechi’s thighs flex as he steps toward the mystery Palace. The dark suit’s cape is conveniently torn in the center, offering an uninterrupted view of the curve of Akechi’s unexpectedly taut, muscular ass. 

_ God help me _ , Akira thinks for the hundredth time today, and he follows. 

###

“Has Akechi always been a particularly, um…  _ relentless _ person?” Kasumi asks him after a few fights. Akira can’t help snort. She’s certainly not wrong. But how is he supposed to explain to Kasumi how hard Akechi works every day to hide his true feelings? 

Of course, Akira roosts on his own dragon’s hoard of repressed hurt. But Akira’s got a dozen places to vent his frustration: long, brutal runs with Ryuji and heart-to-hearts with Ann; gymnastics training with Kasumi and aikido lessons from Makoto. 

Besides, Akira’s mask of composure doesn’t fit nearly as tightly as Akechi’s. When Akira’s pent-up frustration becomes too much to bear, his righteous fury cracks its lid, leaking out in the form of a curled lip or a resentful glare or a moment’s impulsive rebellion. 

Where Akira’s self-control is sloppy, Akechi’s is  _ flawless _ : there are no cracks or seams on his poised, genteel facade. Unfortunately for Akechi, that meant that the rage he hides within has no outlet whatsoever. Instead it builds and builds and builds, filling him up until all that remains under his skin is fury, a whole  _ lifetime _ ’s worth of hatred compressed into one slim, delicate frame. 

So when Akechi breaks the seal and lets his anger out, all that repressed anger comes thundering out with the pure destructive force of a nuclear impact. Any unlucky shadow caught in his path is just collateral damage. 

But Akira can’t exactly say that to Kasumi.

“That’s a complicated question,” he tells her quietly, “with a complicated answer. But I guess the short version is, uh, yes. This is the true Akechi. Or it’s  _ one _ of them, anyway.”

“Right,” Kasumi says uncertainly, shooting him a suspicious look, and Akira reminds himself that everyone likes him better when he doesn’t run his mouth. Still, it’s hard not to lose his head in the company of someone so joyfully, relentlessly  _ uncontrolled _ as dark-suit Akechi. 

##

It’s tough going, fighting with a team of three, but Akira doesn’t mind it. He doesn’t mind fusing a few new Personas so that he can step up as the team’s healer; and he certainly doesn’t mind leaving Akechi in charge of damage. Watching Akechi let loose (in the direction of Akira’s  _ enemies _ , for a change) is a visceral pleasure. And in the absence of the rest of the Thieves, there’s no one around to remind Akira of the various times when Akechi tried to kill him, or to force Akira to reckon with Akechi’s assorted war crimes. He can lose himself in the pleasure of the moment without slowing to consider any unpleasant truths. 

When Akechi first struck an accord with the Thieves and fought alongside them with Robin, Akira always felt like there was something missing. Akechi was -- too complex, too mercurial, too damned hard-to-please to have a noble, simple Persona of justice like Robin Hood. Every other Persona-user he knew was a perfect match for their Persona, and yet here was an elegant, arrogant liar like Akechi, shooting light-arrows like some kind of Hero of Good? 

When he’d learned about Loki, everything clicked into place. Even when the Thieves were fighting  _ against _ Loki, Akira’s heart sang with something like  _ closure _ : relief to know that he hadn’t misjudged Akechi, after all; and that he wasn’t the only man alive with more than one true face. 

If fighting against Loki was painful, fighting  _ with _ Loki is an incomparable pleasure. It’s so easy for Akira and Akechi to fall into an easy, steady sort of rhythm, each using the other’s attack as a springboard for his own. 

##

Akira’s not above coveting that which he lacks. He’s often looked enviously at the rest of his team’s Showtime attacks -- the sort of bizarre spectacles that could only exist in the Metaverse, where the laws of physics are bendy at best and a strong enough desire can shape reality. But for all his admiration, Akira’s never been able to produce one. 

Ryuji used to wonder aloud why he and Akira had never given rise to a Showtime. But to Akira, it was no mystery. A Showtime is a marriage of two Persona-users’ hearts, resonating together into a harmony loud enough to temporarily overwrite trivialities like the laws of physics. When Makoto’s and Ryuji’s visions became one, they made for a fantastically cartoonish show of brute force; where the Showtime of Haru’s flashy toughness and Morgana’s big-talking moxy combined into a stylishly  _ explosive _ power. 

But Akira’s never brought enough to the table to produce such a fantastic display. In his relationships with the rest of the Thieves -- with nearly  _ everyone _ , really -- Akira is a mirror. He’s a staid, endlessly reliable sounding board for his comrades. And how can you harmonize with a mirror? You end up with a cluster of the same sorry notes, on repeat. 

Akira and Akechi are different. Akechi doesn’t look for himself in Akira; any comparison that arises is considered insulting, at best. Each of Akira’s attempts to discern what Akechi wanted him to be (in order to become it) were deftly parried away; everytime Akira thought he’d learned the truth of Akechi’s soul, it twisted free from his grasp. With Akechi, all Akira can ever be is himself. And that means… 

“Joker!” Akechi snarls. Akira snaps to attention. He’s taken a few too many hits in this fight. His health is low; his breaths short and ragged. The enemy’s on the ropes, too, but still, it’s anyone’s game. 

“We can finish them, Joker,” Akechi growls, in a voice roughened with bloodlust and ragged with desire, and Joker feels his heart  _ sing _ . “Look alive, Joker, we can  _ end _ them, right here!”

“Of course,” Akira agrees joyfully, because Akechi is never wrong; because  _ no one  _ is as versatile and flexible and deadly as a team of two Tricksters. With their powers combined, Akira and Akechi can do  _ anything _ .

“Then  _ let’s go _ !” Akechi howls, lean muscles vibrating with tension, and as one, Crow and Joker  _ leap _ \-- 

\--and  _ keep _ leaping, because they’re not in the Palace at all anymore. Akechi is charging through the rain, blade-first, snarling like a man possessed, feet pounding through puddles and leaving glittering cascades of water in his wake. Akira swings through the rain-dark sky above him, sometimes ahead and sometimes behind but never more than a breath away. The two are  _ racing _ now, not to be the first to strike but for the sheer joy of the hunt, and Akechi is laughing, and the rain that falls on Akira’s tongue tastes like green growing things and wet ash and pure unrealized potential, because  _ this _ is what they can do together, they can bend the whole  _ world _ to their will; and Akira swings onto the Shadow and  _ strikes _ \-- 

And they’re back. Their adversary shatters into red-and-black shrapnel, and the walls slide back into place, leaving Joker and Crow back-to-back, panting and breathless, in the sterile white glow of the Palace. 

“Hh--” Akira pants, but Akechi doesn’t even slow down. 

“Come on,” he says imperiously, striding forward. Even as he moves away, Akira catches a glimpse of his face. Akechi is grinning like a wolf, savage and brilliant and insatiable and looking more  _ alive _ than Akira has ever seen in all their time together. 

“Goodness,” Kasumi murmurs. “What was -- were we in an alley?” 

Akira snorts.

“C’mon,” he says, nudging her as casually as he can manage with a heart rate of six thousand and a hard-on the size of the Sky Tower. “Or we’ll never catch up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things might get a little frisky in the next chapter so if you're uncomfortable with that, stop reading here!


	5. Aren't you tired of being nice?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira and Akechi are forced to confront some of the things they've been repressing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for mild sexual situations and arguably dubious consent. 
> 
> more details on that, in case you need em to decide if it's safe for you to read on (this will be a spoiler obviously): the scene involves a brief status effect; the whole situation lasts maybe 10 seconds so there's not time for things to escalate, i just needed _something_ to force these clowns to have an actual conversation. apologies if that makes this less hospitable to you!

The team comes back when he needs them most, because of course they do. The Thieves will always be there for him in a pinch, and Akira will always love them for it. Still, he feels oddly embarrassed to be caught like this: fighting back to back with Akechi, more in tune with his _attempted murderer_ than he’s ever felt with any iteration of the team. 

How’s he supposed to explain how much fun he’s having? What will the Thieves think of black-mask Akechi, who (in the heat of battle) tends to speak before he thinks, and act before he speaks? This Akechi is a creature of instinct, all violent action and savage reaction -- a far cry from the civilized, dignified Detective Prince they once fought alongside. 

And oh, _god_ , Akira thinks miserably: what will Ryuji say when he sees that Akira can do a Showtime with _Akechi_? 

As it turns out, the Thieves don’t think much of anything. Or maybe they do. Akira’s not a mind-reader. Whatever judgment they may or not feel, they’re all much too ashamed about falling for Maruki’s trap to say anything about it. 

All except for Morgana, of course. When in Morgana’s life has he ever felt _too ashamed_ to speak his mind? 

“So Akechi, huh?” he asks on their way home, and Akira flushes. 

“Do you miss your opposable thumbs?” he asks evasively, in lieu of answering. “How many cans of tuna did you open before you figured it out? Thirty? _Forty_?”

“Thirty-two,” Morgana shoots back, not missing a beat, leaving Akira to wonder if the cat’s kidding or if he owes Boss about 6000 yen in tinned fish. “ _So_ _Akechi_ , _huh_?” 

Akira groans. 

“What about him?” he asks defensively. “We have a common goal, so we teamed up. We’ve done it before, haven’t we?”

“Yeah,” Morgana says worriedly, leaning over Akira’s shoulder to give him a pointed look. “We have.”

Akira curses himself for ever bringing up the past. 

“Look,” he says reasonably. “Akechi turned himself in, right? No games. He’s here because reality’s broken, not because he wants to enact some twisted revenge.” 

“I never said he did!” Morgana yowls back. Then he softens. “Look,” he says, bumping the back of Akira’s neck with his forehead. “I’m worried about you, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.” 

“Well, we’re fighting the self-righteous warden of a whole new _reality_ ,” Akira says sullenly. “I really don’t think Akechi’s the biggest threat here.” 

“Maybe not to your _life_ ,” Morgana mutters. Akira graciously ignores him. 

##

In the coming days, the team’s starting lineup fluctuates wildly. With thanks to Hifumi’s strategic training, Akira flips through allies thrice a fight, subbing Makoto for Morgana or Haru for Sumire whenever an enemy’s weakness calls for it. There’s just one exception: Akechi stays on the starting lineup. Akira bought a (very costly) SP charm especially for the purpose, to keep his star fighter from getting too weary. 

“How come doesn’t Akechi have to take a time out?” Ryuji asks crossly, after swapping spots with Yusuke for what may well be the hundredth time today. “You’re wearing down my new sneaks here, Joker.” 

Akira hesitates. Is it too much to hope for Akechi to snip back at Ryuji -- for the two to go at it until the original question’s been buried in passive-aggressive cross-talk? _Yes_ , it turns out. It is. Akechi smiles beautifically at the bristling, disgruntled Ryuji, and placidly awaits Akira’s answer. 

“Uh,” Akira says. _Well, Ryuji, you and I will be friends until the end of time, and I’m terrified that Akechi will leave me the moment reality returns to normal, so I have to keep him as close as I can for as long as I can have him._ “Akechi’s strong,” he says instead. “Strong enough to take on our whole team at once and stay standing. We need that strength.” 

“Ah, yes,” Akechi says sweetly, in an uncanny impression of the late Detective Prince. “Does that satisfy your curiosity, Sakamoto-kun? It’s all very simple. My rank exceeds yours because I’m stronger than you.” 

Ryuji draws himself up.

“Say that to my face, you puffed-up--” 

“Ryuji,” Akira barks, and Ryuji folds. “Don’t give him the satisfaction.” 

“If you say so, leader,” Ryuji says dolefully, giving him a hangdog look that says all-too-clearly, _I think we both know who’s ‘giving him the satisfaction_.’ But he doesn’t protest again. 

##

The team is dog tired. Sumire’s been plumb out of spells for six hours now; and even if Akira and Akechi still have SP to spare, Takemi-san’s medications aren’t meant to be used as a permanent substitute for _actual rest_. SP or no, they’ve been fighting all night, and Akira’s getting sloppy.

He can feel it happening in the reproachful look that Morgana shoots him when he accidentally swaps him in just in time to receive a Thunder Reign to the face; and in the concern that’s all-too-easy to hear in Futaba’s voice. Still, he can’t seem to make the call and send the team home. 

(It’s not that he’d miss Akechi, of course. It’s just that… the last time he bumped into him in Kichijoji, the dethroned Prince gave him a withering stare contemptuous enough to freeze-dry the last shreds of Akira’s dignity. 

“What,” he said coldly, “you came to see me? Just the sort of brainless sentimentality I’d expect from you, Kurusu-kun.”)

Akira could go home any time he liked. He just… still has to blow off some steam, is all. Is there anything wrong with that? 

He prowls to the edge of the precipice and pounces on the unsuspecting Shadow below. 

It’s Cu Chulainn. Piece of cake, Akira thinks tiredly. It’s weak to… what was it again? Bless? So he’ll swap Fafnir for Ishtar, and-- 

Too late, he remembers that he didn’t give her Null Phys yet, even after Yusuke handed him the card. _Shit_ . But it’s too late: it’s already hefted its blade and charged in for one hell of an _Oni-Kagura_. 

_This is the last thing I need_ , Joker thinks furiously, his lips curling back to bare pointed white teeth. _Just what does this thing think it is, anyway?_ _I’ll tear it apart--!_

“Joker’s angry!” he can half-hear Akechi call to the others, with an indulgent little giggle. Akira can hardly make sense of the distant noise through the heat of his rage. “I kind of like it, but it’s not him.” 

Then another _Oni-Kagura_ rocks the team, and Akechi, too, is undone. 

Akira can’t find his knife, and he doesn’t care. He’s ready to kill the silver-plated fuck with his bare hands -- to flay the skin from its bones with his _fingernails_ ; crack its bones and squeeze till the marrow squelches out. Joker’s blood has turned to liquid flame and it _burns_. He can feel it searing at him from within, burning away any trace of thought or feeling and distilling them down to the barest basics: action and reaction; pain dealt and received. 

“Careful!” someone shouts shrilly, from a long way away. “It’s got backup; oh my god, Sumire, don’t get brainwashed or we’re done for--” 

A wave of disorienting force rocks through them, knocking him off his feet, and Joker sees red. How dare they, _how dare they, how_ **_dare_ ** _they_ _fuck with him_ ; don’t they know who he _is_ ? He’s a god-killer, a weapon of mass destruction. He’ll unmake their whole _world_ for _sport_.

Distantly, in the periphery of his red-stained vision, Joker can see someone rounding on him: a slender, brittle form striped with ribbons of charcoal and indigo, its hateful grimace a mirror of his own. 

“Careful!” drones the insect buzzing in his ear; he swats at it impatiently. “Akechi’s been brainwashed! He can’t tell friend from foe!” 

The little enemy surges toward him, snarling like a wild cat, and a grin cracks Joker’s skull from end to end. All this time he’s been thirsting for blood and here comes an eager supplicant, ripe for the picking. He’ll drink its pain down till there’s nothing left, till-- Until-- 

A line creases Joker’s forehead. 

He _knows_ this wild cat. 

Joker doesn’t know his own name, or how he got here, or how he came to be the living embodiment of wordless fury, but Joker _knows_ the feral creature hurtling toward him. He knows every inch of him, from his pointed chin to the jagged spines at his brow to the slender bow of his mouth. It’s Crow -- Joker would know him anywhere. Joker knows Crow and he hates him, he _hates_ him, he wants to hurt him, he wants to fucking _kill_ him. Joker’s killed him and been killed by him; he’s hurt him and hurt him and _god_ has he been hurt by him,

and as his assailant charges in, Joker flings his arms wide to snatch him from the air and tear him limb from limb. Crow leaps and Joker _grins_ a predator’s grin, lips slavering with a terrible hunger. Only a moment more and his prey will be his; he’ll seize Crow in one hand and tear him apart; he’ll _destroy_ him, except that-- 

\--except that he’s got him in his arms now and his hands won’t tear; won’t rend-- 

_\--Joker hates him he'll_ _destroy_ _him he’ll_ **_kill_ ** _him_ \-- 

The bestial stranger struggles in his grasp and snaps at his throat, teeth clacking together hard enough to splinter bone. Instinctively, unthinkingly, Joker holds him closer, as though _daring_ him to strike, to _feed_ , to close his teeth around Joker’s throat and bite down until blood sprays and splatters,

and the blue-and-grey zebra fucking _bastard_ _(fucking bastard_ ) closes the distance between them, and his red eyes blaze with fury, and Joker’s hateful heart is in his throat as Crow presses his mouth onto Joker’s own and

oh _,_ _god_ , 

_this_ is what he thirsted for; 

and Joker pulls the stranger closer. 

Joker tangles his fingers into his hair and _yanks_ , and Crow _mews_ with hurt and presses himself closer, like he’s trying to climb inside him. Joker rakes his claws down the other boy’s back and squeezes his ass cruelly, spitefully; presses the feral fucking bastard against his crotch, _grinds_ on him--

( _he hates him_ **_he hates him_ ** _)_

\--Joker tastes the wet heat of his mouth and snarls and _bites_ till he tastes blood, his or Crow’s or both, it’s impossible to say; all he can say is that he wants more, he wants _more_ , _he--_

“ _Amrita Shower!_ ” someone says, from a long way away.

The world is bathed in cool green light. A tingling, mentholated cool floods his senses, washing the red from his eyes and dampening the fire in his veins, and:

Akira remembers his name, and:

Akira remembers how he got here, and:

Akira feels the warm solidity of flesh in his hands; feels slick rubbery fabric against his fingertips; smells clean linen and warm breath; tastes blood and his own desperate arousal, and:

“Oh my god,” he mutters helplessly as he yanks his hands away, except that only his left hand obeys-- 

( _his left hand, which moments ago cupped the curve of Akechi’s ass; pulled Akechi in so fiercely that his feet dangled above the ground_ ) 

\--because the fingers of his right hand are ( _oh my god_ ) still wound too tightly in the soft tangle of Akechi’s hair. 

“Ah,” Akechi says blankly, his eyes unfocusing as his face goes utterly slack. “Uh,” he says, frozen in place. 

“I’m so sorry,” Akira mutters desperately, frantically working his fingers free of Akechi’s mane, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, does that, um--” 

And then: 

“ _Sorry_ ” Akira mutters again, with renewed hysteria, as he becomes aware of his own erection and proceeds to expend every ounce of discipline in his body in his effort not to stare down at Akechi’s own groin, shrink-wrapped in the hypertight grip of his dark suit.

“Ah,” Akechi says again, his face still frozen in that same neutral expression, like a 404 error made flesh. “I, ah.” 

“I’m sorry,” Akira says again, helplessly, “I-- I’m sorry, I--” 

“Hey!” Morgana hollers, stomping toward them. In the privacy of his mind, Akira thanks any god that might be listening for the cat’s utter lack of tact. “You guys alive?” 

“Yes,” Akira says, face burning.

“Ah,” Akechi says blankly. 

Morgana rolls his eyes. 

“Why don’t we call it a day?” Makoto suggests, from across the hallway, where the rest of the team awaits. From the way the Thieves lean away, the space between them might as well be a bottomless chasm. 

Akira looks mutely back at her, gratitude scrawled in every crease in his stricken brow. 

“Yes,” he says, 

( _and his palms feel hot, and his stomach aches with unanswered desire, and his fingertips tingle where he raked them down Akechi’s back,_ )

“ _Yes_ ,” he says again, more forcefully this time, in an effort to drown out his own miserable thoughts. “Yes. That, uh… I mean, it was just a--” He gives up. “Yes,” he says, for the thousandth time. “Let’s go home.” 

##

No one talks on the walk back. Sumire is the only one who doesn’t give him the cold shoulder. She paces beside him, her cheeks pink with vicarious embarrassment, and occasionally shoots him a look of sympathetic dread. 

_I love you_ , he thinks mutely, in response. _You are my favorite Phantom Thief. Stay forever._ Maybe he would even say it, if his tongue wasn’t swollen fat as a cork in his throat. 

Akira licks his lips and tastes blood, and he tries not to wonder whose it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lolll okay please don’t hate me for the insane trope that i've pulled out here, these fools are so masochistically repressed that i had no other way to force them to talk about their feelings. also this is my first time writing anything REMOTELY sexy so YES i feel sheepish!! what are you gonna do about it??


	6. ...Don't you just want to go apeshitt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys finally, *actually* talk it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not to get overly high on my own supply but i am sitting here grinning like a fool just PROOFREADING this damn chapter, i hope you guys enjoy :3

Even after they return to the real world, Ryuji still won’t look at him. The worst part is that he doesn’t even look angry, just… confused, and maybe a little betrayed. It’d be enough to turn Akira’s stomach, if he weren’t already sick with shame. 

A few minutes before he gets home, Akira’s phone finally pings. It’s Ann.

Akira! We’re not mad.

Akira closes his eyes and tries not to cry. After a brief pause, his phone buzzes again:

Well, I’m not sure about Ryuji. But the rest of us are just… processing. 

“ _YOU’RE_ processing?????” he zings back, with a million question marks; and relief floods him as he gets an immediate reply.

Lol, fair. 

We’re here for ya, kid. We always will be. You should know that by now. 

“Love you, Ann,” he texts her gratefully. “It’s -- It might just be the attack effect, you know?”

“I’ll fight anyone when I’m brainwashed,” he adds. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

He waits, miserably, for her inevitable reply. 

Sure, but. 

….Akira.

……..That wasn’t a fight.

Akira groans and thrusts his phone into his backpack, only narrowly missing Morgana in the process. The cat’s been quiet for their trek home, but he pops his head out when Akira nearly beans him with a projectile. 

“Not a word out of you,” Akira threatens. Morgana snorts. 

“So,” he drawls, his ears flicking playfully. “Akechi, huh?” 

“You wanna live on the streets?” Akira asks furiously. “I won’t hesitate!” 

Morgana disappears back into the bag. 

##

“So the jazz club, huh?” Morgana asks him cheerfully, the next night. “Who’re you gonna invite?” 

“Who do you think?” Akira asks sullenly. From his place of honor on Akira’s shoulders, Morgana twines his tail around his neck. 

“I’ll take a walk then,” he says, bumping Akira’s chin with his forehead, and then hesitates. “Just… be careful, okay? He’s--” 

Morgana pauses to think, and then shakes his fuzzy head. 

“Just because you’re honest doesn’t mean everyone is, okay?” he mews seriously. “I love that you look for the best in people; it helps them to be their best! But not everyone can be what you want them to be. Just -- be smart.” 

He springs from Akira’s shoulders and lands neatly on the sidewalk. 

“We care about you, leader,” he calls over his shoulder as he pads away. “You know that, right?” 

“I know,” Akira mutters, earning a confused look from a passing stranger. Then he punches Akechi’s name into his phone. 

“Headed to the jazz club,” he taps out. “Meet up?” 

He sends it before he can change his mind. 

Akira stares at his phone’s screen for fifteen minutes before Akechi finally answers. Three times, he watches the telltale ellipses confirm beyond doubt that Akechi is typing; and three times, they disappear without incident. The third time, Akira nearly wings his phone into the gutter. 

At last, after Akira’s aged about thirty years, his phone lights up. _Salvation_. (Or possibly damnation, depending on what the Detective Prince has to say. Akechi’s not exactly one to pull punches.) 

Akira squints at his screen through his lashes:

Fine. 

Relief floods him; brings light back to his eyes. Akechi’s not ignoring him, at least. Now they just have to -- _talk_ to each other, like the adults that they are. What could go wrong?

##

“Kurusu,” Akechi says coolly, and Akira (who’s been reclining on a wall by the club’s entrance for so long his foot’s gone to sleep) jolts to attention. 

“Akechi,” he says, breathlessly. The other boy squints at him warily. 

“Shall we go in?” Akechi suggests. “I believe that they have a live singer today.” 

His voice is as crisp and clipped as ever, but his body language tells another story. His shoulders are hunched slightly inward; his arms folded protectively over his chest. Akechi looks _guarded_ , as if he fears that the leader of Phantom Thieves may spring for him at any moment, teeth bared, drooling with lascivious intent. Hot shame washes over Akira. 

“Of course,” he says, ducking his head submissively and stepping back a pace to give the other boy some space. He’s not sure what he expected. Of course Akechi would be freaked out. His -- _work colleague_ chewed on his _face_ yesterday, and now that same colleague has asked him out for drinks. How else would he react but with trepidation and revulsion? 

Face still slumped toward the asphalt, Akira peers up at Akechi. The dethroned Prince’s head is tilted backward, toward the sky. Overhead, a thick blanket of cloud reflects the city lights back at them, casting the whole sky in a faint blush pink. 

Akechi’s eyes catch the light, too. It makes them glow like warm honey. 

It’s been snowing, and a few bright gleams of crystal still dust Akechi’s hair, catching and holding the warm glow of the streetlamps and glittering like starlight. Akira’s fingers twitch. Seized by a brief fit of madness, he nearly reaches out and brushes them away. 

Then he catches sight of Akechi’s mouth, pressed into a thin, pained line, and the madness fades. In the privacy of his pocket, Akira digs his fingernails into his palm. 

“Come on,” he says gently, nodding at the door; and then leads the way, praying that Akechi will follow. After all that’s happened, he expects that Akechi won’t want Akira walking behind him.

##

“I suppose,” Akechi sighs, after their drinks have arrived, “that you’ll wish to discuss the events of yesterday’s infiltration.”

Akira flinches.

“I-- If _you_ want to,” he says hollowly. He knows that he should probably look at Akechi when he speaks. His sense of courtesy wars with his cowardice and loses; Akira keeps his eyes on his drink.

“It’s less that I _want_ to,” Akechi says wearily, “and more that I fear that the alternative might only amplify our discomfort. So let’s clear the air, shall we?” 

“Right,” Akira agrees miserably. Akechi is stiffer than usual today, he muses. For the first time in weeks, he’s showing more Robin than Loki. 

In hindsight, he should have known that Akechi would be professional about this. In the face of Akira’s various fits of sentiment, the Detective Prince has never been anything but businesslike. 

“I’m sor--” Akira starts to say; except that Akechi started speaking at the same time, blurring their words into a jumble of noise. “What?” he’s forced to ask. 

“I’m very sorry,” Akechi repeats, his voice solemn. “Of course, my wits left me in the instant I succumbed to the Shadow’s Rage, but that’s no excuse for my actions. I apologize for making you uncomfortable, Kurusu-kun.” 

Akira blinks at him. For once, Akechi’s not looking at him. His hazel eyes are locked on his lap; his slender fingers fidget on the table between them.

“What?” Akira says dumbly. Akechi shoots him a hostile glare, and then forcibly smooths his expression into the taut, pained smile that he wore when he first arrived. 

“I said that I apologize, Kurusu-kun. I assure you that it will never--”

“ _You’re_ sorry?” Akira echoes incredulously. Akechi’s eyebrow twitches. 

“Ah… Yes. That is what I said, I believe?” He clears his throat uncomfortably. “That is to say… You must understand… When I call upon Loki, I gain access to greater power, but in exchange for that power, I yield a modicum of my control. This means, of course, that--”

“ _Why_?” Akira asks. This time, Akechi outright stares. 

“Why?” he echoes. 

Akira nods mutely. 

“Why am I sorry?” Akechi hazards. 

Akira nods again. Akechi shoots him another baffled stare.

“Why, for--” Seemingly unconsciously, Akechi’s gaze drops to Akira’s lips, still slightly swollen from the previous night’s revelry. Then, as though suddenly aware of what he’d done, pink blooms at his cheekbones. 

_He’s so cute…_

Akira shakes himself off like a dog. 

“Sorry,” Akira says brusquely. “I guess, uh… I mean, I know what you’re talking about. Obviously,” he adds, trying not to let his gaze linger too long on the smooth softness of Akechi’s flushed cheek. “I only mean… why are _you_ sorry?” 

Akechi’s face goes blank. For at least half a minute (or possibly several years), he doesn’t say anything. Then, with that same neutral expression: 

“Because I…”

“No,” Akira cuts in, desperately, “Sorry, what I mean is, _I’m_ sorry.” 

From behind his mop of artfully tousled hair, one of Akechi’s eyebrows goes up -- a millimeter, at most -- and stays that way. 

“ _You’re_ sorry,” he repeats, unreadably. “Because…?” 

Akira squirms. 

“ _You_ know why,” he mutters. “Because I--” his voice fades; he mutters something inaudible. The corner of Akechi’s mouth twitches. 

“Because you what?” he asks, with a glint of mirth that wasn’t there before. Akira rakes his fingers through his hair, clamps both hands tight over his temples. 

“Because I _molested_ you, for fuck’s sake,” he spits out, at last, and to his absolute astoundment, Akechi actually laughs. 

“Kurusu-kun,” he says, leaning forward, and the speculative gleam in his warm brown eyes makes Akira’s heart flutter. “Let’s go for a walk.” 

##

Akira follows Akechi at a short distance, trailing in his wake like a lost puppy. 

“Do you like this world, Kurusu-kun?” Akechi calls back to him. Akira shrugs. 

“It’s hard not to,” he says honestly. “I think I’d probably _love_ it, if I felt like I’d earned it.” 

Akechi laughs. 

“Most happiness is not earned,” he says lightly. “Merely chanced upon, by fate or fortune. Just as most suffering is not deserved. If, after all you have suffered, you should find fleeting pleasure… ought you not indulge? Must it be _real_ for it to feel good?” 

Akira considers it. The question feels like a trap -- doubly so, given what Akechi thinks of Maruki’s supposed paradise. But what else can he do but tell the truth?

“I guess it doesn’t _have_ to,” he says thoughtfully. “But it definitely helps.” 

Akechi laughs again. He’s in a rare mood tonight. Akira hasn’t seen him laugh so much since before the world changed. 

“Why do you ask?” Akira starts to ask, except that suddenly Akechi has closed the space between them, stepping so close that Akira trips backward and collides with the alley wall behind him. 

Akechi doesn’t back off. Instead he advances another pace, placing his foot squarely between Akira’s.

“Hh,” Akira breathes, his heart thudding in his chest like a bass drum, so hard he can feel it pulse in his fingertips. Akechi is so close that he fills Akira’s vision; everywhere he looks, he sees soft chestnut hair and smooth skin and bright eyes like warm caramel, creased with amusement and affection and just a trace of condescension. He’s so close Akira can _smell_ him, like fresh linen and pine smoke with just a hint of something sweet, and the high of it unwinds some tension that Akira hadn’t even known was wound painfully tight in his chest. 

Akira can feel his muscles unspool; feel his anxiety melt like warm butter, trickling and pooling and warming him from within. With Akechi so close, he knows that he should feel panic, but all he can conjure is _relief_ : that Akechi hasn’t pulled away; that, after everything, Akechi’s still here, with him.

“Do you think that this is real?” Akechi asks, in a voice bright with mischief, and Akira can’t take it anymore; he leans in and presses his mouth on Akechi’s.

Blissfully, impossibly, Akechi meets him in the middle; he trails his hand down Akira’s neck, hooks his fingers around his collarbone. Akechi nips gently at his bottom lip and pulls and then _holds_ it there, and when Akira’s eyes fly open _there he is_ , looking daringly up at him. They stay frozen like that for a beat, until Akechi flicks at Akira’s lip with the quick wet warmth of his tongue and then lets him go, drawing back to take a breath -- except that Akira’s not ready to let him go, not yet; he wraps one hand round the nape of Akechi’s neck and pulls him in for more.

Akira wonders briefly if you can die from sheer _overstimulation_. It’s not as though he’d mind. It sounds like a fine way to go. 

For a short lifetime they stay like that -- buzzing and effervescent and fucking _high_ on the sheer implausibility of it all; that their cruel world would let them find each other, again and again and again until they _finally_ got it right.

At last, when Akira begins to fear he may _literally_ pass out right here in the alley, they break apart. 

Akira’s eyes flutter open. Akechi’s flushed face and parted lips mirror Akira’s own. The Detective Prince looks as poised as the day they met, only now his elegance has been textured by a devilish glint in his eye, and there’s a wry twist to his mouth that feels altogether new, and oh, my _god_ , he’s so cute that Akira could _die_. 

“This isn’t real,” Akechi announces flatly, as though reading Akira’s mind. “It’s just a childish fantasy, plucked from my subconscious and manifested by this -- this overblown Midas.”

Akira grins cheekily. 

“How do you know it’s not mine?” he asks, with an impudent gleam. Then the grin drops away. With increasing dread: “How _do_ you know it’s not mine? Oh my god, if Maruki’s just manifesting what _I_ want -- if this isn’t what you want, is this-- am I--” 

“It’s not yours,” Akechi says dismissively. “I’ve yet to fall victim to a single one of _your counselor_ ’s paltry illusions. It seems that my detective’s intuition is too keen to--”

“Oh, shut _up_ ,” Akira says dreamily, and stoops to stop the other boy’s tirade with his mouth. For a moment Akechi tenses in his arms, and Akira freezes -- and then Akechi relaxes into him, pressing himself against the solidity of Akira’s chest. A warm, tingling kind of headiness bubbles from the base of Akira’s spine. When he opens his eyes, drunk off the depth of his own desire, Akechi is looking up at him, lips quirked to one side in a smirk that is as bemused as it is derisive, and Akira thinks that maybe it would be best for him to die right now, here, in the alleyway, so he’ll never have to see anything but that smirk for as long as he lives. 

“You’re a fool,” Akechi informs him, snidely. 

“I get that a lot.” 

And, later, with one hand fisted in Akechi’s hair and the other gripping roughly at the small of his back:

“When we succeed, I’ll go to prison,” Akechi breathes into his mouth, eyelashes fluttering. “You’ll never see me again. It would be unwise to grow overly attached.” 

“Too late,” Akira shoots back, and he buries his face in the nape of his neck and _bites_. 

And later still, when the door to the jazz club jingles shut for the last time, and the neon sign goes dark, plunging the alley into darkness: 

“Do you think this is it?” Akira asks hazily, through swollen lips. In the half-light, he can barely make out Akechi’s impatient glare. 

“Be more specific,” he commands. Akira grins.

“Do you think this is where we go? In our Showtime? Did the Metaverse, like… _know_ somehow?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Akechi sniffs. “It’s only an alleyway.” 

“I’m just saying, it looks kinda familiar.”

“And that only serves to reveal a certain lack of observational acuity.”

“Sorry, Poindexter,” Akira snorts. “Excuse me if I was too busy ogling your ass to get a proper lay of the land in our psychic fantasy alley.” 

A smirk tugs at the corner of Akechi’s mouth. 

“You were _not_ ,” he argues, but indulgently. “You never looked at me twice in Sae-san’s Palace.” 

“Yeah, cause your white suit isn’t _painted on_ ,” Akira snickers, and then hesitates. “And I _did_ watch you, Akechi-kun. I could never take my eyes off you.” 

“Nonsense,” Akechi says crisply. “You needn’t lie merely to mollify my ego, Kurusu-kun.” 

“Akira,” Akira says, recklessly. And then, playfully: “Come on!” when Akechi’s eyebrows go up. “Surely we’ve known each other long enough. How far down your throat do I have to stick my tongue before you’ll call me by my first name?” he asks threateningly, and then makes good on his promise, flinging himself bodily at a helplessly protesting Akechi. 

“Fine, _fine_ , I’ll concede!” 

“God, I never thought I’d live to hear _that_!” Akira crows, and Akechi jabs his ribs with one pointed fist. “ _Ow_.” 

And later still, as the first pale fingers of dawn slowly return color to the dark: 

“I really wasn’t lying, though,” Akira says seriously, sliding a possessive hand up Akechi’s spine to cradle the nape of his neck. “Nijima-san’s palace was -- well. Complicated. We already knew what you intended to do, after all.” 

Akechi’s face goes slack. 

“Ah,” he says neutrally. 

“So I was -- processing that, I guess. Figuring out what it meant, that you -- that you liked my company enough to ask for it, but not enough to let me live. I was -- hurt, I guess. I _know_ , I mean. But even still,” he says quietly. “Even when you were my enemy, I always--” He breaks off, tries again. “I always wanted to see what you’d do next.” 

Akechi chews that over quietly, watching Akira’s face with something that is not quite suspicion and not quite distrust, but not _not_ distrust, either. 

“It’s late,” he says softly. “Or early, rather.” 

“Come to Leblanc,” Akira says impulsively, and only a little desperately. “I’ll make you coffee.” 

But Akechi’s already shaking his head. 

“I ought to -- clear my head,” he says, and Akira’s chest twists with loss as Akechi’s mask of composure slowly slides back into place. “Doubly so if we intend to make any progress tonight.” And then, more sharply than before: “Or did you think that our little tryst would soften my conviction?” 

“Of course not,” Akira says dully. “I wouldn’t-- I mean, I _know_ you. You’d never give up the reins of your life just because it _felt good_.” 

“That’s right,” Akechi agrees. At the sight of Joker’s reddening eyes, he softens, only slightly. “I’ll see you soon,” he says, gentler now. “Tonight, even. All right?” 

“I’ll miss you,” Akira says honestly, and Akechi’s face goes slack again. 

“Tonight,” he says again, as he gently extricates Akira’s hands from his hair. “All right, Akira-kun?” 

_Akira-kun_. 

Akira couldn’t have predicted that he would burst into tears when Akechi finally used his first name, but he does. He _could_ have predicted the look of absolute horror on Akechi’s face. 

“It’s fine,” he says helplessly, waving the other boy away. “I promise. Sorry. It’s just -- a lot, all at once. I’ll see you tonight. I’m fine.” 

Akechi is already halfway down the alley. Before he turns the corner, he lifts his chin over his shoulder, aiming one last pointed, hawklike stare at Akira. 

“This isn’t real,” he says seriously. “Don’t forget.” 

And then he’s gone. 


	7. The lies we tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A routine infiltration does not go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: this chapter includes some explicit sexual content! if you're not comfortable with that, drop to the notes at the bottom to find instructions on how to skip it.

The next day, Akira diligently sleeps through all of his classes. He has to rest up for the day's infiltration, after all. Emotionally wrung out as he is, he doubts he would survive any more life-changing fuck-ups.

He only wakes up once, in Kawakami’s class, when Ann jabs his forehead with the blunt end of her pencil. Akira gives her a bleary-eyed glare before unfolding the swatch of paper that she’s placed in front of his nose. 

_Why so sleepy?_ It says, in her usual loopy scrawl. 

_Up all night,_ he writes back grumpily, and flicks the note back onto her desk with practiced precision. It lands in her open palm, wedging itself neatly between two fingers. She glances back, impressed, before scribbling her reply. 

Akira unfolds the note. She’s drawn a simple little smiley face with a notably suggestive expression. _Should I be worried?_ She wrote underneath.

 _You too?_ He writes back, harried. _You and Morgana need to trust me a little. I’m not stupid._

_No_ , she shoots back, _You’re just a hormonal dipshit with a particularly_ _horny_ _death wish._

She underlined “horny” three times. Akira wrinkles his nose at her before he throws the note away. Ann rolls her eyes, but when he lays his head back on the desk, she doesn’t stop him. 

##

On his way to Odaiba Stadium, Akira decides that it would be wisest to leave Akechi out of the starting lineup. He’s not thrilled about it, obviously, but it’s the right thing to do. With Akechi by his side, he’d be unfocused, and the rest of the team deserves the best leader he can be. Really, it just would be disrespectful to invite such an overt distraction. He’d be _asking_ for trouble. 

When he finishes picking up supplies and saunters up to the Palace, he finds the gang already waiting. Ryuji seems to have undone one of Ann’s pigtails; he yelps in protest as she whips her head around to smack him with the one that’s still intact. Futaba gesticulates wildly as she recounts the heroics of last night’s Featherman rerun for Yusuke, who listens with an expression of utmost solemnity. Makoto and Haru are doting on Sumire, straightening her collar and admiring her sweater and doing everything in their power to make the newest member feel welcome. 

And Akechi? Akechi leans on a wall across the courtyard from the others, looking as small as Akira has ever seen him. His shoulders hunch slightly inward; his forearms are clenched taut as a bowstring. His gaze doesn’t waver from the book in his hands, but Akira can tell from his conspicuously disinterested expression that he’s listening in on the warm, affectionate chatter rising from the rest of the team. He looks _utterly_ alone. 

Ryuji spots Akira and grins. 

“Joker!” he calls, bounding over with all the rubbery-limbed exuberance of a golden retriever. “Put me in, coach! I’m ready!” 

Morgana springs out of range as Akira snatches Ryuji from the air mid-tackle, swinging him around once before hooking an elbow around his neck and aggressively knuckling his hair. 

“You’re a wild card, Sakomoto,” he says gravely, as Ryuji gleefully pummels his stomach, “but by god you can fight. You’re in, kid.” 

“Let me go!” Ryuji wails, but now Futaba’s vaulting in after him, flinging herself toward Akira and Ryuji and knocking them both to the ground. 

“Don’t call him Joker in the real world, moron,” Ann snickers as she sashays over. “You’re like a dumb _dog_ , Ryuji.”

“Indubitably,” Yusuke agrees solemnly, offering Akira a faint smile as he frames the scene with his fingers. “A truly spirited display of recklessness. Yet perhaps it is only by dismantling such constructions as dignity and courtesy that the human spirit may shine most brilliantly.” 

“Yeah!” Futaba yells, from the top of the dogpile. “That’s why I’m so shiny!” 

“You’re certainly brilliant, Futaba-chan,” Haru agrees earnestly. 

“If you’re all finished?” Akechi cuts in coldly, freezing their antics with a withering stare. “I had the impression that our mission was one of _some_ _urgency_ , but perhaps I was mistaken.” 

“Oh, come _on_ \--” Ryuji starts to complain, but Akira shakes his head.

“No, Akechi’s right,” he says, avoiding Ryuji’s eyes. “We should get going.” 

“Who’s on the starting lineup?” Morgana asks cheerfully. “I’m ready to fight if you need me, Joker!” 

“I’m coming,” Ryuji says stoutly, flinging an arm over Akira’s shoulder. 

“Then we just need two more,” Akira nods. “How about Sumire and--” 

_And Haru_ , he tries to say, but his mouth won’t form the words -- not with Akechi standing _right there_ , lonely and angry and brittle as glass. He’s so close that Akira could reach out and touch him, if he didn’t already know how fiercely it would hurt him when Akechi pulled away.

“Sumire and uh……….... kechi,” says his traitorous tongue. _Dammit_. Ah well, Akira thinks, a little too cheerfully. It’s out of his hands now. All he can do is make the best of it.

##

 _How can he act so normal?_ Akira thinks miserably, as Akechi obliterates another horde of Shadows. He supposes that he shouldn’t be surprised. Akechi is well practiced at living a lie. He performed the role of the diligent, courteous Detective Prince for _years_. Of course it would be easy for him to act casual around the boy who just last night washed his adam’s apple with his tongue, and sucked on his earlobe till he wailed like a cat in heat. 

Heat rushes to Akira’s groin. Hastily, he redirects his thoughts. 

He only means -- of course he’s grateful for Akechi’s professionalism, but he does wish that the Detective Prince would look just a _little_ more distracted. Akira, for one, can’t stop watching the wiry cords of muscle in Akechi’s thighs flex and stretch through the sheer elastic of his suit. And now that he’s heard Akechi moan his name in a voice hitched and ragged with desperation, he can’t hear Crow’s hate-roughened howl of aggression without his cock twitching. He’s like one of Pavlov’s stupid fucking dogs, only hornier. 

Maybe Ann was right, and he really is an idiot. 

##

Maruki’s Palace is about as huge and convoluted as he expected, given the counselor’s tendency to get lost in his thoughts. By the time the team pulls up to the third set of Consultation Rooms, Akira is at the end of his rope. He’s tired, and he’s horny, and he’s fucking tired of being horny, and he’s thoroughly frustrated by how cool and unbothered Akechi has been all fucking night.

When he sees how many options they have to choose from to find the right path forward, Akira nearly throws a tantrum, right then and there. But he’s the leader, he reminds himself wearily. The leader doesn’t get to be tired or grumpy, and he _certainly_ doesn’t get to be horny. The Thieves need him to be better. 

“Okay,” he says confidently, once the team is finished gathering intel. “What did we learn?” 

“There’s too many options!” Morgana mews impatiently. “Half of the doors don’t even have anyone to talk to. I think we need more information.” 

“Makes sense,” Joker says, nodding. “And how are we going to get that?”

Makoto slaps both armored hands onto the table with a dull _thnk_.

“I saw what looked like an air vent,” she announces. “Right above this room, actually. I think we should send a covert team ahead for some reconnaissance -- just one or two scouts who can keep a low profile.” 

“Sounds good to me,” Akira agrees, with a grateful nod at the team’s advisor. 

“Who are you going to bring?” Haru asks brightly.

“If it’s a team of two, it should probably be me and Akechi,” he answers, ignoring the meaningful glance that passes between Ann and Morgana. “That way, even if we get caught, we should be okay.” Then, with a tentative glance toward Akechi: “That okay with you?” 

“If I must,” Akechi drawls, turning his face coldly toward the door. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?” 

##

Before climbing into the vent, Akira takes one look at the rest of the team, waiting on the ground floor of the consultation chamber. He can see Morgana perched on Ann’s shoulder, whispering something into her ear. Beside them, Ryuji is looking downright venomous. 

“Are you coming?” Akechi asks impatiently. Without waiting for an answer, he ducks into the ventilation shaft. Akira swings in after him, and at last, it’s just the two of them. 

They crawl in silence for a minute, and then Akira can’t take it any longer. What he _wants_ to do is grab a fistful of Akechi’s tight ass, but given how he’s acted all night, Akira’s not sure how that would be received. Still, he has to say _something_.

“Nice view,” he attempts, somewhat inanely. Akechi snorts. 

“I thought you’d like that,” he says contemptuously, but with a faint flirtatious undertone that Akira hasn’t heard since last night. Akira jumps on it like a lifeline. Mustering his courage, he reaches forward to grab Akechi’s ankle. 

When Akechi glances back, the horns on his mask drag on the ceiling with a shrill metal-on-metal screech. 

“What?” he asks irritably.

“ _You_ know what,” Akira tells him, and gives the other boy’s ankles a gentle yank, pulling his legs out from under him and sending him splaying onto his belly. Akechi sighs impatiently, but again, there’s a note of something else underneath it -- a high, faint whine in the back of his throat. 

That’s all the signal Akira needs. He clambers over Akechi till he’s pressed on top of him, his hands planted on either side of Akechi’s shoulders, knees sandwiching his ass, hot breath on his neck. 

“Why,” he breathes into Akechi’s ear, and feels emboldened when Crow actually _whimpers_ , “are you being like this?” 

“Well,” Akechi murmurs crisply, and then his words are swallowed by another pained, animal whine as Akira runs one gloved hand down his ribcage to press at his hipbone, “I -- _nngh_ ,” he moans again, and then struggles to gather his thoughts. “I merely -- _god_ ,” he groans, ragged and plaintive, as Akira eases his hand lower, “Joker, is this really the time--?” 

“When else?” Akira asks. Then he presses his tongue against the place where Akechi’s shoulders meet his neck and licks, slow and relentless, all the way up to the crease behind his ear. “I have been _salivating_ over you,” he growls into his ear, feeling his cock swell as Akechi squirms under him, “all fucking night, and you won’t even _look_ at me.” 

“Hh,” Akechi breathes, bucking helplessly to grind his ass against Akira’s crotch, and Akira has to bite his tongue to keep from cumming right there. Even with Akechi’s face pressed against the ground, Akira can feel his smile: a mask of fanged, predatory exultation. 

“For your information,” Akechi says archly, rocking his hips back to rub the crease of his shrink-wrapped ass against Akira’s rock-hard cock, and now it’s Akira’s turn to whimper. His arms turn to jelly and he collapses breathlessly onto Akechi, “I was doing it for you. To protect your precious reputation.” 

“My -- _nngh,_ ” Akira starts to say, before Akechi reaches around to wrap his slender fingers around Akira’s bulge and _pull_ and oh, _god_ , he’s-- 

_“God,_ ” he can hear himself moan, “Akechi, fuck, Akechi, _please_ \--” 

Akechi’s hand pulls away, and Akira nearly _wails_ at the loss, until Akechi presses one hand over his mouth. Akechi shifts under him, shoving at Akira’s weight and twisting forcibly until he’s managed to flip onto his back, and now they’re eye to eye, with Akechi’s hand still clamped firmly over Akira’s mouth. 

Akira can feel the hardness of Akechi’s erection pressed firmly against the line of his groin. He knows, rationally, that he should stop — they have a job to do; there are people waiting for them — but he _can’t_. Akira never loses control like this; he’s the leader, he’s always supposed to be in control, but no matter how he tries to still them, his hips still jerk and spasm like he’s a broken fucking marionette and it’s Akechi who holds the strings. 

Two of Akechi’s slender fingers slip into Akira’s mouth and he sucks on them desperately, moans into Akechi’s hand like an animal, and all the while Akechi looks straight into his eyes, still smiling that predator’s smile.

“You are _too easy_ ,” Akechi murmurs, in a voice like velvet, “ _Akira-kun_.” 

Trumpets blare; the world goes white; the air vent shudders, and Akira comes helplessly, desperately, thunderously, into his fucking Phantom suit. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Akira mutters, devoutly, in the calm that follows. “Oh, shit, oh my fucking _god_ , Akechi, how did you-- why did I--” 

“You started it, Akira-kun,” Akechi says innocently, and Akira fucking bites him, right on the face. “Careful,” Akechi tells him, warningly. “Wouldn’t want to leave a mark.” 

“Why fucking not?” Akira demands, and Akechi gapes at him. “Okay,” he adds, grudgingly, “I guess right now it might look kinda bad. But would it be so bad if they found out that we…” Unsure how, exactly, to refer to their arrangement, Akira changes tracks. “Does it have to be this… this big awful secret?” 

“As I’ve already explained,” Akechi says impatiently, wriggling forward and then turning over to continue his descent into the vent. “It’s for the sake of your reputation. Your subordinates--” 

“ _Friends_ ,” Akira corrects grumpily, and Akechi flaps one hand impatiently. 

“Whatever you call them. Semantics aside,” he continues, in the same lofty tone, “they already disapprove of your choice to ally yourself with a _known murderer_. Do you really think they could tolerate your choice to sully your _body_ with my company? To share your _self_ \-- your affection; your devotion -- with so repugnant a villain? You must admit that this little exercise in masochism is perverse, even for you.” 

“ _What_?” Akira asks incredulously, struggling to keep up while also distinctly aware of the wetness radiating through his groin. “You -- _I’m_ a masochist? And you--” he hesitates, his head spinning. The Thieves certainly aren’t Akechi’s biggest fan, but… “They don’t think you’re _repugnant_ ,” he attempts, but hesitantly. Akechi snorts contemptuously. 

“I thought you stopped _deluding yourself_ when you awoke to your Persona,” he says bitterly. “We both know who we are, Joker. You the gallant hero, and I a -- a _brief obstruction_ , to slow your ascent and make your inevitable triumph shine all the brighter. If you wish to pretend otherwise, you are no better than your Maruki, swaddling yourself in fantasy to shield yourself from the truth. Lie to yourself if you must,” he adds, with venom. “I will not aid in your delusion.”

“I-- That’s not fair,” Akira protests, but weakly. “You’re not -- You’re more than an _obstruction_.” 

“But I am a villain, am I not?” Akechi asks, not letting up. “I’ve killed, Joker. I killed _you_.” 

“But you were being used! Shido was--”

“I had a choice,” Akechi says coldly, “and I made it. I won’t pretend that I didn’t. If you have been hiding from that truth, perhaps you ought to do a little thinking before you next decide to use me for your own satisfaction.”

“That’s not fair,” Akira protests, as they approach the vent’s exit. For the first time, Akechi hesitates. 

“I cannot tell you why you do what you do,” he says stiffly, at last. “I cannot -- fathom, personally, why you do what you do. I merely suggest that you -- consider the context. Sexual attraction is simple -- chemical; pheromonal. I cannot blame you for your hormones, and there is no accounting for your _poor taste_.” He spits the words as though they sicken him, and Akira’s heart twists in his chest. “I merely caution you not to mistake this for more than it is. _Think_ , Joker,” Akechi concludes dully, as he climbs out of the air vent. “Act on impulse if it pleases you, but do not do so at your own expense. For all you know,” he adds, with a shadow of his old malevolence, “you could be playing right into my hands.”

Still folded up in the ventilation shaft, Akira looks at him miserably. Akechi glares right back, defensively righteous, and then looks away. 

“For now,” he says quietly, “let us get you cleaned up, and then complete our assignment. Your ‘ _friends’_ await.”

##

Akira’s never felt lower than he does when he and Akechi make their way back to the team, not even in the days after Akechi killed him. He supposes that probably means that Akechi was right. Maybe he has been avoiding the truth. But… Haven’t all the Thieves done things they regret? None of the rest of them have _killed_ anyone, but... Still. There has to be a path forward, doesn’t there? It’s never too late to change, isn’t it? 

Akechi turned himself in -- offered himself up for a _life_ in prison to save Akira from what would surely be a far lighter sentence. When divine intervention offered him an easy out, Akechi opted instead to join forces with his former foes in the fight to protect their reality. Akechi is already trying to atone, isn’t he? Isn’t that enough? Can’t Akira just… support him, and care about him? Does he _have_ to reconcile with his past atrocities, too? 

Akira heaves out another heavy sigh, drawing a curious glance from Sumire. 

“Are you okay, Senpai?” she asks him, and Akira nods. _Don’t show weakness_ , he tells himself. _They need you to be strong._

“Don’t worry about me,” he tells her, with a confidant wink. “I’m always fine.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to skip sexual content, stop reading at "Before climbing into the vent" and skip to "You started it, Akira-kun"
> 
> i've got some mixed feedback about including sexual content in this story, but ultimately my interpretation of the characters is heavily influenced by my own experiences, and Akechi's insecurity strikes me as the type that mirrors my own -- wherein emotional connection feels profoundly scary/vulnerable and sexual connection serves as an easy way to feel briefly, superficially close without actually having to open up to anyone. to my mind, it's what makes sense for the character, and it would be hard for me to push their relationship forward without allowing him to make advances in ways that feel "safe".... i stand by its place in this story, but i am sorry if that makes this series less hospitable to you! for what it's worth, this is the only chapter that has this sort of explicit content, so you won't have much to avoid.
> 
> cheers!


	8. We're on the case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira and Akechi head to Kichijoji to investigate a request from the Phan-Site.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy goro day my friends 🤗

Akechi told him to _think about the context_ before he next called him up, but Akira is finding it harder and harder to care about that. After all, Akechi _also_ told him that this is all a fantasy -- that nothing that happens in Maruki’s fake universe is real; that it’s all just play-pretend wish-fulfillment. _So which is it?_ Akira asks Akechi in the privacy of his mind, in a mocking, challenging tone that he’d never dare use in real life. _Do I need to come to terms with our miserable past, or does nothing that happens here matter?_

In Akira’s opinion, it’s _neither_. The Phantom Thieves staunchly believe that you can start over at any time; and even if this universe is fake, the things he does and the memories he forms feel all too real.

Still, if he had to choose one, it’d be the fun one.

“Akechi,” he taps into his phone, impulsively. “I need your help with some detective work.”

Then he sends the message and waits.

 _What could you possibly be referring to?_ Akechi asks, witheringly, a few minutes later. Akira grins like a cat.

“We’ve got a few Mementos missions -- people asking for our help,” he writes back. “Only I can’t find the names of our targets. Can you help?”

Akira hasn’t even _started_ looking for the names of their targets, but Akechi doesn’t need to know that. If Akira knows anything about Akechi, it’s that playing to his ego is the one surefire way to bring him out of the woodwork.

Sure enough, less than a minute later, his phone buzzes.

 _Never send an amateur to do a professional’s job_ , Akechi tells him smugly. _Where do we start?_

##

It’s been a while since Akira’s gone out with Akechi by light of day. The sun does wonderful things to his coloring: brightens his mousey hair to a bright gleaming chestnut run through with ribbons of warm honey; makes his hazel eyes look almost gold. For all his claims to be a creature of darkness, the sun certainly loves Akechi.

Akira can’t help but grin as he watches Akechi climb the stairs from the Kichijoji station. Then a thought strikes him, and he frowns.

“Should you be in disguise?” he asks, as Akechi draws nearer. Akechi sniffs dismissively, and then pauses to consider it.

“I’m not wanted by the law,” he says tentatively, as though trying on the idea for size. “My wardens released me of their own free will. And the public--”

He frowns.

“I couldn’t say _what_ the public thinks of me now,” he muses. “In the days following Shido’s confession, I was convicted in the court of public opinion, but now no one seems to think of Shido at all. Perhaps the same is true of me? Still,” he says worriedly, “you may be right. Adjusting my appearance might be prudent, on the off-chance of any--”

“Here,” Akira says eagerly, shrugging off his coat and holding it outward like an offering. “Let’s swap.”

Akechi raises an eyebrow, but complies. The Detective Prince is the taller of the two of them (by only a narrow margin), but he’s still somehow swamped by Akira’s long, hooded coat. Only the tips of his fingers protrude from the sleeves. Akira bites his tongue, but he fails to hide his smile.

“What?” Akechi asks sharply.

“Nothing.” And then, against his better judgment: “You’re cute, is all.”

“Hmph,” Akechi huffs. “Well? Am I a new man?”

Akira gives him a quick once-over as he thrusts his arms into the sleeves of Akechi’s fawn blazer. It smells intoxicatingly of Akechi: clean linen with a sharp twist of pine, softened by a hint of something warm and sweet.

“It’s not really your style,” he says thoughtfully, swallowing the upswell of emotion that Akechi’s scent provokes in him. “But otherwise -- no, honestly. You just look like the Detective Prince, but warmer. More importantly,” he adds disapprovingly, shivering under the slightly-too-tight grip of Akechi’s jacket, “Akechi, this is _not warm enough_! Do you freeze every time you leave your house?”

Akechi scowls.

“I’ll have you know,” he says regally, “that my blazer is from Dior's Fall Collection, and is the peak of--”

“So that’s a yes?” Akira cuts in. Akechi glares at him.

“It could be warmer,” he allows, grudgingly. Akira snickers, and then snorts again as Akechi’s scowl deepens.

“Then let us trade back,” Akechi sniffs. “If you find the cold so hard to bear.”

“No chance,” Akira shoots back, with an impudent grin. Akechi scowls.

“Give me those,” he demands, taking a swipe at Akira’s face. Akira ducks effortlessly out of the way, and Akechi glares at him.

“I know perfectly well that your glasses are only for show, Kurusu-kun,” he says coldly. “If you’re so determined to disguise my visage, oughtn’t we at least choose a mask that actually conceals my face?”

“I guess,” Akira grumbles, and hands them over. He always feels naked without his glasses. Akechi’s hostile expression shifts, just slightly, as Akira gives him a sheepish smile.

“What?” Akira asks, feeling more than a little self-conscious.

“It’s nothing.”

“ _What?_ ”

Akechi rolls his eyes.

“I always forget how pretty you are, Kurusu-kun,” he says calmly, as though he weren’t detonating a bomb in the pit of Akira’s stomach.

“You _what_?”

Akechi shoots him an impatient look before striding away from the station, perfectly secure in his assurance that Akira will follow. (He’s right to be. Akira would follow him anywhere.)

“Well, of course you’re attractive to _me_ , Kurusu-kun,” he says coolly, and Akira wonders if perhaps he fell asleep while waiting for Akechi and landed in some kind of pleasant dream. If it is a dream, it’s an unusual one. Akira’s dreams are usually altogether more violent. “But sexual attraction is chemical; pheromonal -- it doesn’t _have_ to correlate to your own aestheticism. Why do you wear those glasses?” he asks, abruptly. Akira thinks about it.

“I don’t like the attention I get when I don’t,” he answers honestly.

Akechi laughs, without artifice. Akechi has a dozen different laughs, and Akira has catalogued them all. There’s the courtly, controlled chuckle he performs on talk shows, when affecting a mirth that doesn’t reach his eyes, and the high, cruel cackle that rips through him when he tears an enemy apart. There’s the sharp, derisive exhale that follows after Ryuji says almost anything, and the grim, humorless chuckle that shudders through Akechi when he talks about the past, as brittle as broken glass and twice as sharp. This one is Akira’s favorite: a quick, bright expulsion of genuine surprise.

“We really are opposites,” Akechi tells him, with an air of undeniable affection that sends a thrill of warmth up Akira’s spine.

“What do you mean?” Akira asks, doubling his pace to keep from falling behind. Akechi shoots a wry glance over his shoulder. He’s wearing Akira’s glasses, which make Akira look like an oversized beetle but somehow only _amplify_ Akechi’s cuteness. He looks like a bright-eyed little chipmunk, for fuck’s sake.

Faced with Akira’s all-too-obvious admiration, Akechi smirks.

“Without all my, ah, shall we say _acoutrements_ ,” he says crisply, and then elaborates: “my attire, my grooming, my accessories -- well, I look simply ordinary.”

Akira opens his mouth to argue, but Akechi’s not done.

“The guise of the handsome Detective is one that I construct around myself,” he explains. “It’s like the plumage of a tropical bird: a flashy display designed to deceive the eye. Yet here you are, born with a startling beauty that could win you the allegiance of all you encounter, and you insist on hiding it behind unfashionable lenses and unkempt hair.”

“I can’t tell if you’re complimenting me or insulting me,” Akira laughs, feeling so bright and buoyant that he half expects his feet to lift off the ground altogether.

“I’m doing nothing of the sort,” Akechi disagrees courteously. “I’m only making an observation. Now it strikes me that I’m leading us, Kurusu-kun, though I do not know our destination. Tell me about our quarry.”

They’ve come to Kichijoji to find intel on a disruptive Twitch streamer, the sort of narcissist contrarian who’d rather be hated than overlooked. It doesn’t take long for them to find the alley where his brother claimed he performed most of his so-called _pranks_.

It’s a pleasure to watch Akechi work. He’s impeccably courteous to each pedestrian that he approaches, with a bright, unassuming manner that disarms each new target. Akira’s so busy watching him that he doesn’t even recognize Akechi’s latest mark until the second time she says his name.

“Akira-kun,” she repeats, more uncertainly than before, and at last, Akira blinks back at her. Recognition strikes, and a mischievous grin spreads across his face.

“Sensei!” he says grandly, stepping forward and sweeping into a deep, reverent bow. “It’s been too long!”

“I must agree!” Hifumi tells him warmly, in her soft, breathy tone. “The Togo Kingdom languishes for lack of conquest,” she says gravely, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Without war to fuel our spirits, our storehouses grow thin; our warriors lean and grey.”

“Please accept my sincerest regrets,” he tells her solemnly, with an even deeper bow. “If I knew that my absence would be so keenly felt, I would have crossed mountains and forded rivers to offer my armies up for slaughter.”

She smiles at that, fidgeting with the ribbon in her hair.

“It’s good to see you, Akira-kun,” she tells him shyly. “I wasn’t sure it was you, without your glasses. You look very handsome.”

Akira feels the temperature drop just a moment before Akechi materializes beside him.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” he asks genially, smiling a fanged smile that Akira recognizes as Smile Number Sixteen: always artificial; frequently lethal.

“Of course,” he says hastily. “This is my Togo-san, my Sensei. She graciously allows me to die by her hand in the field of battle.”

“I instruct him in the art of shogi,” Hifumi explains, with a nervous half-smile.

“And Sensei, this is A--ahhh...” Akira freezes mid-syllable, unsure how to proceed. Is he supposed to introduce Akechi as Akechi? Or would he want Akira to use a false name? Surely Akechi would want to choose his own name; he’d never allow _Akira_ the honor of determining his identity, even for one so fleeting.

“--kio,” Akechi finishes for him, with that same sharp-edged smile. “Akio-san will be fine.”

Akira nods, feeling unusually useless. Akechi is standing closer than he has all day, close enough that Akira can _smell_ him, and it’s taking all of his willpower not to reach out and catch him by the waist and pull him closer.

“Nice to meet you, Akio-san,” Hifumi says politely, with an uncertain glance toward Akira. “Ah… Do you go to school with my student?”

“Akio is my, uhhhh--”

Akira knows that he’s fucking this up, but what did they expect? It’s not like he’s known as a particularly fast talker. With anyone but Akechi, it’s rare for him to string together more than a sentence at a time.

“His boyfriend,” Akechi finishes for him, and Akira nods gratefully for a second before Akechi’s words actually hit his brain.

His eyes go wide.

Then:

“That’s right,” he agrees easily, closing the narrow distance between them and wrapping one arm around Akechi’s waist. _May as well make the most of it,_ he tells himself, giving “Akio” a possessive squeeze. He can tell that he’s grinning like an idiot, but he can’t seem to make himself stop. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure if-- He can be shy sometimes,” he confesses, ostensibly to Hifumi, except he can’t tear his eyes away from Akechi, who (in flagrant disregard of all precedent) is actually _leaning in_ , looking right back at him with an expression of tolerant, affectionate disdain.

“Oh,” Hifumi says, sounding somewhat disoriented. Maybe she looks disoriented, too. Akira would like to shoot her a comforting smile, except that he can’t tear his eyes away from Akechi. “I suspected as much,” she says shyly, and _now_ both Akira and Akechi turn to stare.

“Why?” they ask, in unison. She blinks at them, disoriented all over again.

“Ah -- well, he’s wearing your glasses?” she asks, more than says. “And your jacket, Akira-kun. And you were, um…” She looks at her feet. “...staring at him so hard that you didn’t even see me,” she finishes, sheepishly.

Akechi pins Akira to the wall with a proud, hawkish stare, as possessive as it is contemptuous.

“Yes, Akira can be like that,” he confesses, with a conspiratorial smirk. “Now, we have a reservation to make, so -- it was a pleasure meeting Akira’s little shogi partner, Togo-san,” he tells her, with a polite half-bow. “If you’ll excuse us.”

“Boyfriend, huh?” Akira mutters into Akechi’s ear, catching his hand as the dethroned Prince wends away through the crowd.

“You were tormenting the poor girl,” Akechi sniffs regally, keeping his gaze resolutely forward. “She was clearly pining quite terribly. The kindest thing I could do was put her out of her misery.”

In the face of Akira’s hundred-watt grin, he scowls.

“It’s not as though she’ll remember it,” he says impatiently. “We’re rewriting reality, remember? Now come along. We have work to do.”

##

When the job is done, they end up at the jazz club, just like Akira planned. On their way in, Akechi shoots a pointed glance at the alley and then flicks his gaze wryly toward Akira, who blushes.

“After you,” Akira says bashfully, and follows Akechi into the smoky dark.

##

“God, I was so sure it was a date, the first time you asked me here,” Akira confesses, halfway through their second drink.

“You were _not_ ,” Akechi disagrees lazily, shaking his head.

“Are you kidding? _I’m alone right now_ , your text said. How obvious can you get?”

Akechi snorts so hard he chokes on his drink.

“I suppose I was trying to -- test you,” he muses, after clearing his throat. “In my own way. You had so many friends, after all. I couldn’t fathom why you continued to indulge my requests.”

“Oh, sure,” Akira drawls. “How very generous of me, to go play pool with the cute boy from TV.”

Akechi jabs him with one sharp elbow.

“I mean it,” he says sharply. “This was before I’d confirmed your identity, of course. All I had was a hunch -- just a flutter of intuition, tugging me toward you.”

“Oh, is that what you call it?” Akira asks, with a suggestive leer, and Akechi elbows him again.

“I’m being serious! I knew why _I_ sought _your_ company. Your responses to me were--” he hesitates. “-- _unexpected_ ; and their motives, indecipherable. If I hoped to satisfy my curiosity, I required more data.”

“Just like I needed more data after I watched you bend over the--”

“ _Akira_ ,” Akechi hisses, and Akira’s heart flutters.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly.

Akechi stares hard at him. After a moment, his face closes.

“Of course, once I learned your true identity, your motives were all too clear,” he says coldly. “You required an informant; sought to use my trust in you against me.”

“What?” Akira asks helplessly. “I didn’t.”

Akechi raises one eyebrow.

“I _didn’t_!” Akira insists. “I went out with you because I _liked_ you, you absolute clown-shoes _goblin_.”

Behind Akira’s borrowed glasses, Akechi’s expression doesn’t change.

“Ugh!” Akira sighs, finally frustrated. “What do I have to do to convince you that I _liked_ you?” He leans in close, smiles a dangerous smile, and is rewarded with a faint rush of color in Akechi’s cheeks.

“Would it help,” he growls into Akechi’s ear, and feels heat bloom in his belly as Akechi squirms in his seat, “if I told you I almost kissed you, that first night we came here?”

“You didn’t,” Akechi protests, but weakly.

“You told me this place was special to you. You said that chatting with me was _refreshing_ , and that you'd never brought anyone else here before; and when you said that you should go, you had this look, like…” Akira closes his eyes. “You looked so lonely, like there was nothing waiting for you at home at all, and I almost-- I tried to reach for you, brush your hair back, pull you in, but I was too scared. My hand wouldn’t move, and I just… let you leave.”

Akechi’s expression is still neutral, but he’s listening intently. He looks utterly awake.

“I called you, when I got home,” Akechi whispers, barely audible above the din of the bar. “It was an impulse. I didn’t even have anything to _say_. It wasn't…” He bites his lip, starts again. “I don't believe that it was a test, or a game. I didn’t even think about it. It was like my hands acted of their own accord.”

Akira lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, and breathes him in. Akechi smells bright and smoky and _dizzying_ , feels solid and warm and real in Akira’s hands. He inclines his head forward, just slightly, till his forehead rests against Akechi’s temple.

“That time at the bathhouse,” he murmurs, unwilling to let this moment end. “God, I was so fucking surprised to find you in Leblanc, in my _home_ , for fuck’s sake.”

“I already knew, then,” Akechi breathes. “I came to investigate -- to find the answers I sought. I was there to peel away your skin and pick through the bones. I didn’t expect Sojiro-san to send us to a _bathhouse_ , of all places.”

“I was so afraid that you’d see me -- that you’d see how much I liked you,” Akira goes on, breathless. He doesn’t move a muscle, as though at any unexpected movement Akechi might spook like a deer and run. He can’t remember the last time he talked so much. “But when we got in, the water was so warm, and your skin so flushed, and your -- the line of collarbone so sharp, your body all hard angles--"

“I was going to take advantage of you,” Akechi murmurs, and Akira shudders. Akechi shoots him a sharp look. “Not like that,” he says, warningly. “I only mean that -- you were so tired, and warm, and relaxed; and I was going to take advantage of that, to make you confess. Except that I hadn’t been to a bathhouse since I was a boy, and Mothe--” He hesitates; looks away, presses on. “My mother made me wait in the baths down the block when she brought home a client. I never had blankets, back then, or warm clothes, and the bathhouse was the only time I was ever really warm -- and there you were, ripe for the taking, but you just sat there listening to me with those huge dark eyes... I always said too much, with you," he finishes, and though his face is still frozen in that mask of careful neutrality, he looks so soft and so fragile that Akira could weep.

“When you fought me -- the first time, in Mementos,” Akira says, the words pouring out of him now. “That’s when -- that’s the first time I wanted to _fuck_ you,” (he spits the word violently, desperately), “not to kiss you or to hold you but to _ruin_ you, make you _squeal_.”

“I almost killed you that night,” Akechi whispers gently, like a promise. “I was going to kill you. All alone in the world; no one would ever know what happened. I _hated_ you for beating me, _hated_ you for being so much--” He breaks off, gasps for breath. “--so much better than me, and for-- after all you saw and all you went through, still you reached out to people; it was so _easy_ for you to trust, it wasn’t _fair_ \--”

“I touched myself that night,” Akira growls, and Akechi shudders again, vibrates in his seat like a guitar string. “ _God_ , all I could think about was your -- your big bright eyes and your smile like knives, and the hurt in your voice and the hate in your voice, I wanted to-- I needed to--”

“And the next time?” Akechi asks, breathlessly. “When we _really_ fought?”

Akira’s heart breaks, all over again.

“I couldn’t,” he sighs miserably. “I couldn’t even _think_ of you without falling to-- I was too sick with hurt, Akechi, I couldn’t bear it.” He knows he should leave things there ( _nothing is real here, it’s all a fantasy, can’t he just enjoy it?_ ) but he can’t help it. He’s wondered for too long.

“Why did you do it?” Akira asks, helplessly. “Why did you-- why did you kill me?”

For the first time since their conversation began, Akechi looks straight at him.

“I--” He pauses; tries again. “It was just a job," he says, hoarsely. In all the time he’s known him, Akira’s never seen Akechi look so small. “I was-- I’d already-- I’ve killed a lot of people, Akira,” Akechi whispers, into the dark. “I’d-- I know that you think that there’s good in me, and maybe there was once, but it’s been gone for _years_ , Joker; for as long as you’ve known me, there’s never been anything good in me. I killed you because I was told to, and because I could, and because I _hated_ you, for suffering and suffering and still being good, even though I was so bad.”

“Akechi…” Akira says miserably. Akechi shakes his head violently, brushes Akira’s hands away with revulsion in his eyes.

“You’re wasting your time,” he says dispassionately. He’s in control again -- his mask is back in place, like it never left. “I know you, Kurusu-kun,” Akechi says cruelly, lifting his chin coldly. “You take care of _everyone_ , at your own expense, and you never let anyone take care of you. Don’t you know that some people are beyond your help?” he asks, with a hateful glare. “That for some people, it’s just _too late_? You can throw all the love in the world at them and all they’ll ever do is drink it down and turn it into rot, into hate. You can’t save _everyone_. You can’t even save yourself.”

“I have to go,” Akechi spits, flinging a fistful of cash at the table and following it up with Akira’s glasses. “This is -- _pointless_. _Think_ , Kurusu-kun, for once in your _stupid_ life. Think about yourself, and what you’re doing, and where it leads you. And don’t call me unless you need me to fight.”

“Akechi--”

But it’s too late. He’s sweeping away again, his heart rotted black and frozen heavy in his chest; and no matter how much Akira wants him to, he’s never going to look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok not to brag but i did in fact quietly weep while writing the last half a page so yea you could say i'm doing well. hope u like cute sunshiney dates and horrible wrenching self-esteem issues lmao


	9. The third awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira and Akechi confront Maruki.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am emotionally wrung out & need to sleep for six years after finishing this behemoth of a chapter. it took a lot out of me. i hope you guys like it. 
> 
> TW for (off-screen, not at all graphic) implication of abuse, discussion of past trauma

As requested, Akira doesn’t text Akechi again. Unfortunately, that also means admitting to Sojiro that he needs to borrow a jacket. Akechi ran out of the jazz club in such a white-knuckled rage that he conveniently forgot that he was still wearing Akira’s warm winter coat. Which would be fine -- it’s comforting, in a way, to know that Akechi will be warm for once -- except that Akira can't exactly show up to school wearing Akechi's blazer. He's fended off the worst of his friend's suspicious looks until now. An outright, undeniable _clothing swap_ would be one strike too many.

“What happened to the one I got you for Christmas?” Sojiro asks disapprovingly, when Akira makes his request. “That coat wasn’t cheap.”

“I loaned it to a friend,” Akira lies, feeling guilty. He hates lying to Sojiro. “He didn’t have a coat, and…” Akira looks at his feet. “...he looked cold,” he finishes, feebly. Sojiro gives him an exasperated look.

“Well, now _you_ look cold,” he sighs. “That’s what happens when you give away your clothes without thinking. Maybe I should let you shiver a little -- teach you a lesson about the value of your things.”

Still, when Akira comes down for dinner, he finds a dusty, faded overcoat folded over his chair.

“It was just gathering dust,” Sojiro grumbles, not looking up from his task. “This saves me the trouble of getting rid of it. Just don’t come whining to me if it makes you sneeze.”

“Thanks, Boss.”

##

For the next few weeks, Akechi is missing in action. Akira doesn’t find him loitering outside of Jazz Jin, or running errands in Shibuya, or getting on the train before school. After an entire year of oddly-frequent fated encounters, Akechi is nowhere to be found. It’s enough to make Akira wonder if some of those _fated encounters_ weren’t fated at all: perhaps some of those “coincidences” had been orchestrated by Akechi, and not by destiny, after all.

Akechi still shows up to infiltrations, of course. To the rest of the Thieves, the change in his behavior would be unnoticeable. He’s still a tiger in the field, and a prickly, arrogant bastard at rest. But he and Akira haven’t done a Showtime in weeks.

Outside of their infiltrations, Akira doesn’t see Akechi at all. Not until February 2nd, when he finally gets a visit from Maruki.

"Thank you for the coffee," his counselor says kindly, settling into the seat across from him.

Akira squints at him. He’s not exactly sure how to treat him, after all that’s happened. Maruki _was_ something like a friend, before Akira found out that he'd been overwriting people's identities without their consent. (The Thieves fucked with people’s heads too, of course, but only to protect the victims of their abuse. And who was Sumire victimizing, other than herself? Admittedly, the same could be said of Futaba, but _Futaba_ was given a choice in the matter.)

“Now, let me ask you this again,” Maruki goes on, leaning over the table toward him. "After _really_ considering every option, do any of you have doubts about your views?"

“Any of us?” Akira echoes, exchanging glances with Morgana. Maruki smiles knowingly and shoots an expectant glance at the door of Leblanc.

"I suppose it's more accurate to ask, do any of _you two gentlemen_ have any doubts?"

Akira’s not sure who he expects to walk through the door. Sojiro? Ryuji, who’s dropped by Leblanc every other night this week? Certainly not Akechi, who hasn’t said a word in the group chat in _weeks_ ; who acts like a stranger when they fight side-by-side.

But it’s Akechi who storms in, bristling and defensive and more than a little embarrassed. It’s Akechi whose bitter, cornered glare threatens to unseat Akira’s already-rocky composure. Akira can smell him from here.

He’s still wearing his jacket, Akira notices, with a rush of genuine delight.

Akira knows that this turn of events should make him feel anxious. He and Akechi left things on painfully uncertain terms; Akechi won’t even _speak_ to him, for fuck’s sake. Still, Akira can feel his body relax at the sight of him. After everything, Akechi is here, by his side. Just this once, it’s not solely up to Akira to be strong and sure and certain -- to decide the fate of the world on behalf of all the rest. Just this once, he can share the burden. Just this once, he doesn’t have to do this alone.

“You caught me,” Akechi says coldly, flushed with shame.

“Oh,” Maruki tells him, suddenly flippant, “it was just a hunch. After all,” he adds, with a knowing gleam, “this involves you, too, doesn’t it?”

Akira turns instinctively toward Akechi, unwilling to miss even one withering glare ( _god_ , but he’s missed that fucking glare). If Maruki thinks that he can win Akechi over with kind words and sympathetic smiles, he's in for a rude awakening. Akira may have a weakness for good intentions, but Akechi cares about _results_.

But -- something’s wrong. Bizarrely, inexplicably, Akechi won’t meet Maruki’s gaze. When the counselor glances toward him, Akechi looks down and away.

Akira stares searchingly at Akechi, silently begging for some shred of context. Regardless of what awaits them in the real world, Akira would still expect Akechi to thumb his nose at Maruki, only the latest in a _line_ of adults to try and fail to control Goro Akechi. He certainly didn't expect this evasive, submissive quiet.

He can’t muster a modicum of shame when Maruki catches him in the act of staring volumes at Akechi. Akira doesn’t give a shit what Maruki thinks of them.

"The relationship you two share is very unusual," the counselor says thoughtfully, and Akira and Akechi both whirl to glare at him. Maruke flinches under the full weight of their focus.

"A detective and a phantom thief," he continues, and they relax. "Despite being enemies, your relationship isn't based on hatred."

Akira shoots Akechi another hangdog look, which he courteously ignores. Maruki's expression grows solemn.

"That's why I found it so tragic when I learned what happened in Shido's palace," he says heavily. Akira’s eyes narrow. He shoots another confused glance at Akechi, but Akechi still won’t meet his eyes.

“That’s why I created a world where the two of you could start fresh,” Maruki goes on, relentlessly. Akira stares at him blankly, without comprehension.

“But -- no," Morgana says slowly, and Akira hates him for it. "But then -- but that would mean that the Akechi in the real world is--"

Akira puts a hand over Morgana’s head, hard enough to stop the cat in his tracks.

Akira doesn’t know-- Akira doesn’t know what he’s supposed to _make_ of this. Does Maruki think he’s a fool, to be deceived by so transparent a gambit? To believe that-- And when Akechi is _right there_ , in front of him, a bright sharp _keenly_ _attentive_ presence, just as fierce and fanged and furious as ever? When Akechi is cold and warm and hard and soft in turns, and Akira can smell clean laundry and sawdust and a hint of something sweet, and Akira can see the breath tug shallowly at Akechi’s narrow chest, and Akechi _still won’t_ _look at Akira, not even for a second--_

"I genuinely didn't want to tell you like this," Maruk is saying in the background, his face an obscene carnival caricature of sympathy. "I didn't want to make it seem like I'm holding him hostage..."

Akira stares at him incredulously. He’s really trying to-- As if Akechi’s life were a prize to win, a token to gamble with. As though Akechi were something he could _use_.

"But no matter what you may think of me, I just want you all to accept this reality and move on with your happy lives."

Akira can’t--

Akira’s tongue sits fat as a toad in his maw. Akira’s mind scratches in its track like a record. Akira can’t _think_ straight, can’t manage to confront the idea that-- The idea that--

“And this matters how, exactly?” Akechi asks coldly.

Akira’s attention shifts quietly, numbly, toward him.

“Don't tell me you think that dangling my life before us is going to have any impact on our decision,” Akechi continues, his high, clear voice dripping with derision.

Akira blinks at him, dizzily. Akira can’t see straight, can’t _think_ straight, can’t finish a thought or a sentence. Akira’s lost, Akira’s _panicking_ , but it’s okay: Akechi’s here, and Akechi always knows exactly what he wants.

“Did you,” a voice asks hoarsely, and Akira is startled to realize that it’s his own. “Do you think it’s…?”

Akechi looks at him defiantly.

“True?” he finishes for him. “That I’m dead?”

Akira just stares.

“Well,” Akechi says, bitterly. “I lacked conclusive evidence.”

Akira doesn’t understand.

“You mean you,” he attempts, with immense effort. “Had already…” he trails off. “You already, _theorized_ , or…?”

Akechi’s expression softens, almost imperceptibly. Only someone who’d spent the past year obsessively observing his every smirk and tic and snarl would notice anything at all.

“Well,” Akechi says hollowly. And then, even more reluctantly: “...After our fight, I had a gap in my memory that ended with meeting up with you again. On Christmas Eve," he adds, in a rush of words, as though trying to get them over with. “And -- there were also the cases of Wakaba Isshiki and President Okumura... Proving quite conclusively that the dead--"

“Stop,” Akira mumbles under his breath, unbidden, barely audible, and Akechi stops.

Maruki darts an inquisitive look between them, and Akira looks right back at him with _hate_ in his eyes. How fucking _dare_ he dangle Akechi’s-- How fucking _dare_ he try to _use_ Akechi to get his way, just like every other controlling adult they’ve fought before. How fucking _dare_ he show up here with that stupid fucking facsimile of _sympathy_ on his face, like he _gave_ a shit, like he didn’t show up here with the full intention of using people’s _lives_ as collateral.

"I had a feeling the truth of the matter wouldn't dissuade you, Akechi-kun," Maruki says earnestly, while Akira tries to set him on fire with his eyes. "But what about you, Akira-kun?"

Akira sees red.

Akira is not a violent guy, but Akira wants to _hurt_ Maruki, a little. Maybe Akira would consider listening to what his counsellor has to say, except that Akira is already expending every ounce of effort in his body just to keep from uncoiling like a spring and _swinging_ at the bastard. He’s not sure what would happen if he took a swing at a mind-bending god in his own reality, without a Persona or a weapon or his team. Probably Maruki would make it so that he’d never met Akechi at all, and had no reason to be angry in the first place.

Akira fucking sees _red_.

In the background, Maruki is saying some bullshit about how he _owes_ him, and how he’s grateful, and also about how he’s definitely the _hero_ of the story and just not a narcissistic coward forcing the entire world to dance to his crisp, sterile, childproofed little tune.

At some point, Akira becomes aware that Maruki has stopped talking. He can’t bring himself to speak to him. Instead, he flicks the calling card across the table.

Eventually, after some more infuriating noise, Maruki leaves and Akira turns, lead-limbed, toward Akechi.

“What are you gonna do?” Morgana asks, looking up at him worriedly. Akira blinks at him. Honestly, he’d forgotten that Morgana was there.

Akechi glares down at Morgana.

“I’d like to speak to Kurusu,” he says coldly. “ _Alone_ , please.”

Morgana’s tail puffs up a little, and then he considers the circumstances. He twines himself around Akira’s leg one more time before he pads outside, looking worriedly over his shoulder as the door jingles shut.

“Akira,” Akechi says quietly. Akira looks hopelessly up at him. He feels naked: flayed skinless and boneless, with all the soft meat at the heart of him laid bare under the thin grey light. “I _will_ carve my own path, Akira-kun,” Akechi tells him, with quiet, resolute desperation. "I refuse to accept a reality shaped by someone else's hand; I _refuse_ to live under the yoke of another. I already tried that once,” he adds, sharply, with a harsh, sharp-edged laugh. “I won’t let it happen again.”

Akira just stares at him. He feels all hollowed out.

Akechi shoots him another of those quick, brittle glances, like light glancing through glass, and Akira realizes that he’s nervous.

“You won’t,” Akechi starts to say commandingly; then stops abruptly, and starts again. “You wouldn’t--” His voice dies again. “ _What are you thinking, Akira-kun_?” he asks at last, in a jumble of jangled sound.

Akira stares at him.

"I would never try to control you," he says reflexively, unthinking. His head feels like it’s full of air; he’s barely aware of what he’s saying. “I'm on your side, Akechi.”

Akechi gapes at him. He looks downright haunted.

“You,” he says, and then stops. His agonized expression lapses into that familiar mask of neutrality, the one that slides into place when Akechi’s emotions outpace his thoughts.

Akira looks up at him miserably. “But,” he says, and Akechi’s eyes widen with fear, or maybe fury. “You really knew--? _Suspected_ , I mean,” he says fiercely (he _refuses_ to accept Maruki’s theory as fact; from the start, he was sure that Akechi wouldn’t let himself die down there). “You knew about this -- _possibility_ , and you didn’t tell me?”

“Would it have helped you to know?” Akechi asks, the words clipped and quick. “Would you have been any more efficient, or more lethal?”

“Of course not,” Akira says. “But -- not everything’s for a _purpose_. Some things are just about respect.”

Akechi gapes at him.

“How so?” he asks sharply.

“You know how I feel about you,” Akira says openly, unabashedly, and doesn’t falter when Akechi scowls and looks away. “You might not _respect_ it, but you know.”

Akechi glowers, folds his arms over his chest.

“I fail to see how this little display is _remotely_ relevant to--”

“You know I’d want to know,” Akira cuts in, quietly. “It might not affect your choice, Akechi, but it affects _me_.”

Akechi rounds on him, snarls like a cornered fox.

“And what would you have me do about it, exactly?” he asks furiously, hackles up, fangs bared. “Do you want me to _apologize_ , for keeping such a secret? For -- feeling _private_ about the fact of my own death? It’s _my_ death,” he says, jaggedly. “No one else’s. What I do with it is _my_ business.” And then, with just a touch of defensiveness: “I won’t apologize.”

“I didn’t ask you to,” Akira says dully. “I’m just… I guess I just thought you should know how I felt.” The words sound like a stranger’s. When has Akira ever needed anyone to know how he felt? Knowing how people feel is Akira’s job.

Inexplicably, that last part seems to reach Akechi. His hackles fall, just a little.

“Well,” he says bitterly. “Now I know.”

They look at each other for a moment: two raw, exposed nerves, firing in tandem. Then Akechi straightens.

“My choice is made,” he says coldly. “I will not be anyone’s puppet; my actions are _mine_. And now,” he continues, shooting Akira another furious, hateful glare that does nothing to conceal his terror. “I want to hear you say it, aloud. What do you intend to do?”

Akira blinks at him, uncomprehending, before he figures out what Akechi is asking.

“Akechi,” he says, nakedly. “I’m not…” He trails off, bites his lip. “Do you really think I’d cage you, just to keep you?”

Akechi just glares at him. The hole in Akira’s chest throbs.

“I love _you_ ,” he says, unthinking. It just slips out, before Akira can think about how much Akechi will hate him for it -- just one more injustice; one more thing that comes to Akira easily, effortlessly, even though for Akechi it’s torture. “Not your -- attention, or your affection, or your presence. I couldn’t -- I wouldn’t _break_ you, just to have you,” he explains desperately. “Not if it meant taking the one thing that _actually_ matters to you. I don’t want to _domesticate_ you, Akechi, I just want--”

He hesitates, unsure how to finish, because Akira doesn’t know _what_ he wants. He’s never really thought about it. He’s not sure anyone’s ever asked.

As he spoke, Akechi’s body language shifted, only slightly. He’s no less tense, no less furious, but some of the terror has gone out of him. Akira can see relief washing over him.

He’s not engaging with the confession at all, Akira realizes, with amusement. Perhaps he should be disappointed, or even embarrassed, but he’s too wrung-out to feel anything other than distantly amused. Of _course_ Akechi wouldn’t respond. The only thing he cares about right now is the answer to his question, the one that determines his fate. _What do you intend to do,_ he asked.

“We won’t take the deal,” Akira says quietly. He’s stating the obvious, after all he’s said, but he figures it’s still worth saying. “We’ll take back our reality.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” Akechi says, cool as a cucumber, and Akira nearly laughs at the absurdity of it all. His first confession… In hindsight, it was always going to be like this.

“I will never accept this form of reality,” Akechi adds, with venomous conviction. “I’m _done_ being manipulated. Let’s go back,” he says, lifting his chin regally, all cocksure, brilliant certainty. “To our _true_ reality.”

The air around Akechi sparkles.

Akira can see it in his wide, startled eyes; in the distant sound of chimes, and in the telltale crackle, like static, in the air. Akira’s watched his friends Re-Awaken a dozen times now. He knows when a Persona’s about to change forms.

Akechi, on the other hand, looks absolutely baffled.

“What… _What is this_?” he demands suspiciously. His mouth twitches, as though he were trying to scowl, but he’s powerless to stop the broad, brilliant grin that spreads steadily across his face. “This feels _great_ ," he admits, warily, and beneath it buzzes a giddy thrum of pleasure so tangible Akira can _taste_ it.

“This feels... _god_ , I feel _alive_ ,” Akechi growls throatily, his voice vibrating through Akira’s sternum. “I don’t _understand_ , this feels as if-- But is this my new power?" he asks, plaintively, so confused as to sound nearly dismayed. Akira snorts.

“Yeah,” he says, watching Akechi with open, unabashed devotion. “It’s a Persona Fusion. You fused Robin and Loki.”

“I did _what_?” Akechi asks, white-knuckled. He glares at Akira frantically, furiously; and then the fight goes out of him. “But,” he protests weakly, in a very small voice. “But it didn’t hurt.”

Akira looks at him nakedly.

“Akechi,” he says quietly. “When you awoke to Loki, did it hurt?”

Akechi stares through him.

“Terribly,” he whispers. Then he laughs his sharpest, most brittle laugh, like glass shards grinding together. “Robin hurt too,” he says brightly, but emptily. “But it felt good, too. I was afraid, but I was also -- emboldened. For the first time in my life, I could actually _change_ anything.”

“How old were you?” Akira asks. Akechi frowns.

“Oh, seven or eight, I think,” he says distantly, to Akira’s shock. “I wandered into the Metaverse altogether by accident. It was before there even _were_ cell phone apps -- I went into the TV, in our guardian’s horrible little office. And I was very afraid, of course, but when I found him with-- When I saw what he was doing, I got so very angry that Robin sort of-- _burned_ his way out of me. Of course, when I climbed out of the TV again, our guardian was dead,” Akechi continues, in that same flat tone. “But my sister -- the other girl fostering there, I mean -- she was so glad and relieved that I thought that maybe what I’d done was good, after all.”

Akira looks at him miserably. Akechi had done what Akira did: he saw something he couldn’t forgive, and he acted. Only Akechi hadn’t known that you could steal a heart without killing its owner. How could a child know that? He saw a monster, and he defeated it.

“And Loki?” Akira asks, unable to stop himself. Akechi smiles his emptiest smile.

“That was during the first job I ever did for Shido,” he says to no one in particular, grinning ghoulishly into the middle distance. “A lot had happened by then. Robin was _nothing_ , compared to Loki. Loki took me apart. I was never the same after that.”

Akira just looks at him, shattered. Akechi glances toward him and scowls, crosses his arms.

“You swore you wouldn’t pity me,” he says coldly. “Now -- explain this to me.”

“Explain?” Akira echoes. Akechi gives him an impatient glare.

“What do you mean, they’ve _fused_?”

“Oh,” Akira says. He thinks about it. “Uh… It’s like, reconciling aspects of yourself?” he hedges. “Killing old versions of yourself to make them into something stronger than the sum of their parts, or something. It’s where I got all those Personas.”

“I thought you caught them,” Akechi says blankly. Akira shrugs.

“Some of them.”

“Wait,” Akechi cuts in, shaking his head again. “This doesn’t -- make sense. How could they _both_ \-- Loki _killed_ Robin; put that childish delusion of justice in the ground when it became clear how far I would-- How much I would-- They can’t _both_ be true,” he says desperately, looking absolutely haunted.

“Well,” Akira says, feeling unusually reckless. “Seems like they are, though.”

“ _Excuse me_?”

Akira glares at him, finally succumbing to frustration.

“Didn’t it ever occur to you that they were _both you_?” he demands. “That justice and savagery aren’t _utterly_ antithetical? That Loki’s not some kind of, of, proof that deep down you’re _evil_ , he’s just -- I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here -- a particularly _violent_ resolve to never be made the victim again?”

Akechi is gaping at him.

“Well, _no_ ,” he says furiously, after a beat.

“No, you disagree?”

“ _No, it never occurred to me_ ,” Akechi hisses. He looks absolutely dizzy. Akira rises to his feet, feeling nearly as light-headed as Akechi looks.

“Come on,” he tells him, tugging gently at Akechi’s sleeve. “Let’s go to my room. What would we do if Sojiro came back?”

Akira looks at him numbly.

“I should go--”

“ _No_ ,” Akira growls, fiercely, and then checks himself. “I mean -- of course you can. If you want. Just -- not yet, Akechi, _please_ ,” he begs openly. Akechi’s eyes flick toward him.

“Fine,” he concedes. He goes limp, and allows himself to be guided up the stairs. His legs don’t bend after Akira positions him in front of the couch, so Akira presses gently on his shoulders, until Akechi folds obediently downward.

Akira slumps into the seat beside him; reaches for him, and then hesitates.

“Can I touch you?” he asks desperately.

“I don’t know,” Akechi says distantly. Then, after a short silence: “Yes.”

Akira folds his arms around Akechi’s narrow shoulders and squeezes, as though trying to press Akechi back into his body.

“Where are you?” he asks. “Can I help?”

“I’m thinking,” Akechi says tonelessly.

“… Do you want to think out loud?”

Akechi shakes his head.

“I don’t believe that I… do that,” he says. Then, with a ghost of his usual spirit, he shoots Akira a faintly derisive stare. “You do know that it’s not your job to fix _everyone_ you meet, don’t you?” he asks drily. “This… _Fusion_ has illuminated a major discrepancy in my, I suppose you could say my self-conception. It will… take some time, for me to find sense in the noise. That much is out of your control.”

Akira purses his lips. He _hates_ when it’s out of his control.

“Well,” he says grudgingly. “Just -- remember that you don’t have to do it all in one night.” And then, slightly more playfully: “Some people don’t even _have_ a definitive thesis on their fundamental nature, you know. Some of us just… look for a good time, and try to be decent, and try not to die.”

“How intolerably nebulous,” Akechi sighs, but the corner of his mouth ticks upward. “How ever do you get anything done? But, I take your point. I’ll try to be, _patient_ ” (he spits the word like a curse) “with myself.”

“Thank god,” Akira sighs, exhausted. He’s much too tired to hold back: he folds forward and bumps Akechi’s shoulder with his forehead, like Morgana does when Akira’s feeling low.

To his absolute astoundment, a moment later, Akira feels a faint, featherlight pressure on his scalp. Akechi has placed one tentative hand on the back of his head.

Akira freezes, terrified that the wrong word or gesture will send Akechi skittering back behind his walls. Instead, he feels the opposite: the pressure shifts and then sharpens as Akechi twists his fingers through Akira’s curls and lightly, uncertainly, grazes his scalp with his nails.

Akira’s self-control shatters. He purrs like a cat, falls forward into Akechi’s lap and then twists his head to catch a glimpse of the other boy’s face. Akechi still looks pale and unsteady, but there’s a wan little smile tugging at the corners of his lips, and a gleam of actual warmth in his eyes. Akira grins broadly, disbelieving.

“Akechi,” he breathes, surging upward until their noses brush together, “I--”

“Be quiet,” Akechi tells him, but fondly, and kisses him.

 _God_ , but Akira missed this: the feel of Akechi’s mouth on his, the sharp bite of his teeth and the quick wet warmth of his tongue, and the absolute _bliss_ when Akechi’s other hand alights in his hair, light and unsure as a songbird. Akira moans more with _relief_ than with any physical pleasure, an unconscious expulsion of pure comfort, of release, of _deliverance_.

“Akechi,” he whispers breathlessly, “you saved me.”

“I did nothing of the sort,” Akechi denies, and Akira laughs in his face. He feels _drunk_.

“You did!” he insists, giddily. “If you hadn’t showed up to face Maruki, I would have-- I could have-- I don’t know _what_ I would have done. I don’t always know what’s right, you know. Everyone trusts me so much but I’m just-- I’m no different from them, except maybe a better listener. I’m not always sure of what to do.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Akechi says lazily, his eyes half-lidded. “Who is?”

“ _You_ are!”

Akechi gives him an ironic little smile.

“That may well be,” he concedes, “but where has that certainty brought me? False positives and preemptive conclusions, overturned by time over and over again. Hm,” he hums to himself, as if considering what he’s said.

“What?” Akira asks eagerly, closing in so quickly that their foreheads bump together. Akechi snorts and bites him.

“None of your business,” he says archly. “I won’t be another of your projects. I can take care of myself, Kurusu-kun. Perhaps you should consider doing the same.”

“Me?” Akira asks incredulously. “But I’m--” But Akechi is already shaking his head.

“A liar knows a liar,” he says crisply. “And you were never half as good as me. You don't have to perform that role here, Kurusu-kun, not for _my_ benefit.”

“But I’m not--”

“ _Akira_ ,” Akechi says, sharply, and Akira falls silent. “I’ve told you before, haven’t I? You can lie to yourself, but you cannot lie to me. You’re simply out of your depth,” he adds, with a wry gleam that swoops through Akira’s belly joyfully, violently, more like a swarm of _hawks_ than butterflies; and Akira can’t take it any longer.

“I love you,” Akira whispers helplessly, desperately; the words tumble out of him eagerly, uncontrollably, too huge and too powerful to keep trapped behind his teeth any longer. “I’m sorry,” he adds reflexively, as Akechi stiffens, “I’m not-- I don’t need anything from you, I’m not waiting for anything, I’m just-- You told me not to lie,” he says plaintively, almost _whining_ now. “And I-- I’ve been biting my tongue for a _lifetime_ , and I don’t know if -- _when_ I’ll get the chance again, you move so _fast_ , Akechi, I slow down for a second and you’re already a gleam on the horizon, so I just had to--”

Akechi stops Akira’s waterfall of words with his mouth. Akechi grabs at the back of his neck and digs his nails in _hard_ , like a cat seeking purchase; presses his forehead against Akira’s till it hurts. Akechi pulls Akira in so tight it’s like he’s trying to climb inside him, like he’s trying to shatter the boundaries between them and fold them together into a single tangled knot of hunger and hurt and desperate, aching yearning.

“I--” Akechi starts to breathe into his mouth, and then his forehead knots with hurt. “I’m sorry,” he says instead, and it’s maybe the first time Akechi’s ever apologized to anyone and _meant_ it, only Akira doesn’t care about that because all he cares about is getting closer, closing the space between them till there’s none left.

“Don’t be,” he says recklessly, pulling away for just long enough to sweep one arm under Akechi’s knees and the other behind his back and _grab_ him, hoisting him effortlessly into the air. Akechi’s look of wide-eyed, open-mouthed startlement is already reward enough, but Akira’s not done; he throws him roughly onto his bed, rough enough that he can hear one of the wood pallets splinter and crack.

Rolled up on his back like a beetle, Akechi’s shoulders tense a little, defensively; his face takes on a wary edge. Akira growls impatiently.

“I don’t need anything from you,” he repeats, deadly serious. He folds to his knees beside the bed so he can stare straight at Akechi instead of looking down at him. “I’m not waiting for anything; there’s nothing I need you to do. I just -- want to be closer. Is that okay?”

Akechi blinks at him, takes a moment to process that. He straightens up a little, tucks his hair behind his ear. Akechi stares into Akira’s eyes searchingly, inquisitively, and whatever he finds there curls the corner of his mouth into a smirk.

“Well,” he says, haughtily. “If that’s all.”

Akira doesn’t move. Akira lets Akechi’s eyes sweep over him, undress him, skin him, _fillet_ him; luxuriates in the excruciating bliss of being seen, _really_ seen. Akechi’s gaze caresses his neck, his jaw, his wrists; lingers on the open, unguarded hunger in Akira’s black eyes.

Akechi smiles arrogantly, mercilessly.

“Well?” he says imperiously, at last. “What are you waiting for?”

Akira descends on him -- blankets Akechi’s body with his own and kisses him fiercely, urgently, hungrily. Akechi’s hands rake through his scalp, tangle in his hair, and Akira purrs like a cat and sinks his teeth into his lip.

“Can I undress you,” he mumbles into Akechi’s mouth, “I have to touch you, _please_ \--”

But Akechi’s already fumbling with the buttons of Akira’s shirt with his left hand while shucking off his own borrowed coat with his right. It’s tricky, one-handed; Akechi scowls and turns his face impatiently away.

“Take that off,” he commands, demanding, and Akira shudders as he obeys, wriggling out of his shirtsleeves and half-hop-, half-tripping out of his jeans, all under Akechi’s watchful, possessive stare.

“And mine,” Akechi commands, and Akira sucks in another shuddering breath; _this_ is what he’s been waiting for. His fingers fucking tremble as he peels away Akechi's stupid sweater vest, fumbles with the buttons of his shirt.

“Why do you have so many _layers_ ,” he mutters breathlessly, and Akechi actually laughs, a _real_ laugh of genuine affection; and then it doesn’t matter anymore because Akechi’s shirt has fallen open, baring a panel of stark smooth flesh, and Akira can see his his ribs through his skin and he traces the line of them dreamily, marvels at the little streak of honey-colored hair that trails down his belly, rubs his face against the velvety skin of his chest just to breathe him in, just the scent of him enough to satiate a hundred years of hunger.

“ _God_ ,” Akira moans, helpless, and Akechi smirks.

“Come here,” he says roughly, pulling Akira up by his hair, and Akira is all too eager to comply, surging upward to press his mouth on his. He wraps one long arm around the small of Akechi’s back; tangles the other in Akechi’s tousled mane. Akechi opens his eyes, _growls_ at him.

“Pull,” he commands, and Akira gives his hair a tentative yank.

“ _Harder_ ,” Akechi snarls, and Akira _wrenches_ , hard enough to pull Akechi’s head back and arch his back into a pained crescent, and Akechi’s eyes crease with pain and pleasure and a high, mewling whine creaks out of him, plaintive and needy and hungry.

“Akechi,” Akira breathes, wonderingly. Akechi cracks one eye half-open, gives Akira a look that’s all bright open curiosity.

“...Goro,” he murmurs, grudgingly, so quiet that Akira has to hold perfectly still just to hear him. “I… suppose that you can call me Goro.”

Warmth washes over Akira, crinkles his eyes, fills his chest with sunlight and his mouth with honey sweetness, sets off firecrackers in his fingers and toes.

“Goro,” he says reverently, falling forward to kiss Akechi’s -- _Goro’s_ temple, his cheekbone, the line of his jaw, his pert nose. “Stay with me,” he begs him. Goro’s eyebrow twitches.

“Tonight, or in general?”

“Either. Both. Whatever you’ll give me.”

Akechi smirks.

“We’re fighting a god tomorrow,” he says challengingly, tracing the line of Akira’s jaw with his fingertip. “Don’t you think it might behoove us to be properly rested?”

“I’ll sleep like the dead,” Akira vows, eyes shining with resolve.

“On your very luxurious pile of milk crates?” Akechi asks dubiously.

“Anywhere you want me to,” Akira agrees easily, helplessly. “On the stovetop downstairs, if you like.”

Akechi flashes another radiant, tolerant smile.

“I suppose that your pile of milk crates could be considered very nearly _comfortable_ , compared to that,” he drawls. “Perhaps I could -- stay the night, just this once.”

Akira never dreamed of feeling so happy.

“On one condition,” Akechi adds, sharply, and Akira snaps to attention.

“Anything.”

Akechi gives him a wry look.

“Be careful what you consent to,” he says archly. “I’ll stay, Akira-kun, _if_ and only if I can keep this coat.” And then slightly sheepishly, as Akira gapes at him: “I suppose that I never really knew how insufficiently my blazer inured me to the cold until I was presented with an alternate, more--”

“ _Keep it_ ,” Akira says giddily. “I’ll buy you a hundred coats. Any color you want.”

Akechi rolls his eyes tolerantly. Furtively, without making eye contact, he tucks himself tighter into the crook of Akira’s arm. Sounding faintly defensive: “I can’t promise that I’ll--”

“I don’t need _anything_ from you,” Akira tells him reverently, for the third time tonight. “I don’t expect anything; you’re not promising anything, being here. Just -- be with me, for now. If you want.”

Akechi sighs and relaxes into him, and Akira folds his arms around him with pleasure.

A long, comfortable quiet passes between them.

And just as Akira begins to wonder if the love of his life has somehow, impossibly, exhausted himself so thoroughly that he’s fallen asleep right here:

“I don’t believe that I’m dead,” Goro whispers, his breath fluttering against Akira’s chest, and Akira feels that flickering panic again, the dissonant terror of a threat too dire for his mind to hold. “I cannot know, of course. Wakaba Isshiki doesn’t believe that she’s dead, though I know all too well that I--” he cuts himself off, tries again. “I cannot recall _anything_ , from the moment I fired on my double to the moment I awoke in the square in Shibuya, inexplicably resolved to turn myself into the authorities. And yet… I cannot believe that I allowed myself to die by Shido’s hand. After all I have endured, I cannot believe that a pathetic, reductive echo of my image could unmake me entirely. I cannot believe that I would go without keeping my promise.”

Akira’s throat is too tight for him to _breathe_ , much less speak. All he can do is wrap his arms around Akechi, squeeze him as tight as he can.

“I suppose that in the end,” Akechi says, in a voice heavy with irony, “all that you can do is _trust me_. Funny, isn’t it? In order to weather the battle to come, you must put your faith in the words of a liar -- one who has lied so well for so long that even _he_ can no longer see what is true.”

“I trust you,” Akira says fiercely, sending a twitch of startlement through Goro’s slender form. “I don’t care if you don’t trust yourself. It doesn’t matter. _I_ trust you. And if you trust _me_ ,” he adds, fervently, “then -- then -- then you should trust my judgment, and trust you too.”

Akechi pries himself out of Akira’s grasp, pulls back just far enough to look into his eyes.

“You’re a fool,” he says, but wonderingly; and Akira’s heart breaks, and he smiles.

“I get that a lot.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sheeesh, whatta roller coaster, huh? hope it felt good and cathartic and not, like, overwrought and annoying! sorry they didn’t uhhhhhh fuck; if I'm honest, i think that akechi needs to work through some more of his self-image stuff before he can bang in a healthy and not self-destructive way. (lol what a crazy thing to say about FANFIC but what can i say, these boys are Real and Important to me). i never expected to put so much of myself into akechi but we are similarly spiky self-destructive fuckheads so in hindsight it was probably inevitable. 
> 
> if you feel so inclined, you can read a little more context on how akechi has historically felt about his multiple Personas in Liars and Tricksters, an introspective little head trip into Akechi’s POV back when he first started fighting alongside the Phantom Thieves! (also featuring an early jazz club date teehee). link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23656414
> 
> PS probably one more chapter and then this journey is at its end 🥺
> 
> PPS shoutout to @narrativef0ils on twitter for drawing this beautiful fanart of Akechi in Joker's coat!! i am feeling very 🥺🥰😭about it - https://twitter.com/narrativef0ils/status/1259274311178702849


	10. True ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After defeating Maruki, Akira readjusts to his "true' reality.

Akira wakes up in prison.

It’s not particularly jarring. Akira often wakes up in prison. The rough, unforgiving press of the slab under his back; the raw chafed welts around his wrists are all par for the course, for Akira.

So it takes him a minute to realize that the lighting is wrong. His pale, sun-starved hands aren’t bathed in blue light, but a flickering fluorescence of a dingy, dishwater grey. And in place of the grim, operatic echoes that ever-filtered through the clammy walls of the Velvet Room, there is only a lingering quiet.

Akira rubs his eyes, looks around.

The cell is larger than the one he’s used to: four concrete walls, grey-white as pigeon shit. A small desk; an even smaller chair. A high, square window throws a small panel of sunlight across the tile floor, crosshatched with stripes of shadow. There are bars over the window, Akira observes distantly: slender shafts of rusty grey, fuzzed over with little curling shavings of peeling white paint.

He’s in prison. It’s not a prison of his own devising; a dreamlike depiction of the rigged game that is his entire life. He’s _actually_ in prison.

“Hm,” Akira says.

He wonders briefly, quietly, if perhaps he’s experiencing some kind of psychotic break -- if this past month of romance and violence and sickening, blinding desire was nothing more than the hopeful delusion of an atrophying mind. In some ways, it’s more believable than what he recently considered to be true. Did he really think that Goro-- that Akechi would ever fall asleep in his arms, warm and soft and fragile as a fawn? That Akechi would trace the lines of his face like they mattered, like _he_ mattered? That Akechi’s mouth hung open when he slept; that he drooled, a little, and then tried to hide it by flipping the pillow when Akira was looking away?

He closes his eyes and pictures himself tugging Goro downstairs by the hand, kissing his cheek and his nose and the nape of his neck and assuring him that Sojiro wouldn’t throw him out just for being hopelessly, desperately in love with a boy. Sojiro had raised an eyebrow when Goro padded nervously downstairs, linked to Akira by two fearful fingers. He’d raised the other when he saw the way that Akira orbited Goro like a satellite, winking and nudging and showing off a little as he brewed them some coffee; and at the way that Goro softened under his touch, tension melting from his shoulders like warm honey. Then he dished up a second plate of curry and slapped it onto the counter beside Akira’s.

“On the house,” he said gruffly, and retreated to the kitchen.

The whole way to Odaiba, in spite of what awaited, Akira was walking on air. He stole kisses while waiting at crosswalks, slipped his hand into Goro’s pocket, breathed in the warm sweetness of his breath. Even Morgana’s yowls of complaint couldn’t stop him from holding Goro’s hand too tight, pulling him too close, wringing every last ounce of intimacy from their final moments before they rejoined the rest of the team to fight for a reality that might not even include the one thing Akira had ever really wanted for himself.

….Morgana turned into a _helicopter_. Even in a reality fueled by fulfilled wishes and delusions of grandeur, surely his cat couldn’t turn into a helicopter. What was the rationale? “Because he wanted to?” An unrealistically simple solution to an impossible problem.

“Hm,” Akira says again.

What he _won’t_ do is freak out -- batter the bars with his fists, slam the little desk against the floor until it splinters. He _won’t_ dissolve into tears, or howl like an animal at the possibilities that would take him apart if he dared to look at them too closely. That sounds like a good way to earn himself an extended sentence, and Akira doesn’t even know how long his _original_ sentence is.

For now, all he can do is take a page from Goro Akechi’s book: keep his face neutral, hold his mind still, and wait until he’s gathered enough data to find out what the fuck, exactly, and _why_ the fuck, and how.

##

He turned himself in, apparently.

Which means that here and now, in this reality, Goro-- _Akechi_ never offered to take his place. (Which doesn’t mean anything. Akechi offering his life up to the state like some kind of sacrifice was always one of Maruki’s wilder delusions. Contrite or no, Akechi is a pragmatist. What would a life behind bars do for his victims? For himself? For _anyone_?)

Akira supposes that he’s lucky to have awoken to reality on a day when Sae Nijima was visiting. Akira’s holding it together, but he can tell that there’s a time bomb ticking away inside his chest. He’s not sure how long he could have sat on this kind of absolute uncertainty before it went off, shredding his skin and turning his bones to shrapnel.

“I’m grateful for your cooperation with the trial,” she tells him, and Akira manages to bob his head agreeably. ( _Tick tick tick, goes the timer counting down to his breaking point, tick tick tick tick tick and he still can’t see the screen, can’t see how much time he’s got left._ ) “I’ve got two pieces of good news for you today.”

They’re prosecuting Shido, she tells him, and that’s a load off his mind. Akechi will be safe, as long as he’s-- And he’ll be glad, too, of course, and relieved, and maybe even vindicated.

"Your testimony proved to be very useful."

Nod, nod, nod, very good, yes, he’s glad to hear it. It’s what he’s here for, after all; why he’s trapped in a cage where the water tastes like metal and he can only see the sky through a six by six square, instead of out there, searching for Goro.

Sae harps on about civil protests for a while, and the power of the people, and Joker nods and smiles and nods and smiles and counts the seconds until his skin cracks.

“And now for the second piece of good news,” she says, and Akira can’t fully suppress a swell of hope. _We found Akechi, he’s alive and well. He’s hiding out in the attic above Leblanc; he works at the cafe on weekends. Ann introduced him to her therapist and it’s not always easy, but he’s making progress. He said to tell you that he misses you._ “As of today, you’re free to go.”

Disappointment comes first. Then he remembers about the bomb, and how he can't let it go off while he's still behind bars, where any crack in his mask could double his sentence or worse.

“Oh,” he says vaguely. “Good. Or, I mean -- really?”

Sae gives him a faintly disoriented smile.

“Makoto mentioned that you weren’t very expressive,” she says, “but I’ll admit that I expected a _bit_ more enthusiasm.” She’s teasing him. Akira tries to curve his mouth up manually, mimic something like a smile. It’s not good enough. He conjures Goro in his mind’s eye, chiding him. _Be what she expects you to be, you spineless simpleton_ , Goro says witheringly. _What were all those masks for, if not moments like these? Affecting a proper show of gratitude is the least that you can do_.

 _You’re right, of course_ , Akira agrees, browbeaten and low. He shakes himself off and gives Sae a proper grin, with just a glimmer of Joker’s confidence.

“I’m glad,” he tells her earnestly, and then twists his smile a little, shows some vulnerability. “I’m… overwhelmed, to be honest. And a little afraid of getting my hopes up, only to have it all taken away.”

“Well, it’s no trick!” she says briskly, sounding relieved. “You’re a free man, Kurusu-kun. Shido’s confession shed light on your innocence; and your friends worked tirelessly to push your case forward. We just need your signature on some paperwork, and we’ll have you out of here.”

“That’s incredible,” he tells her, heaping on the gratitude. Akira’s all smiles; he can’t believe what she’s done for him, he’s so grateful, ( _and tick tick tick goes the countdown_ ). “Thank you so much, Sae-san. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”

“You already have!” she tells him warmly, clearly glad to have finally nudged out his “true” reaction. _He’s not such a tough nut to crack_ , she’ll tell Makoto later. _Just shy, and maybe a little slow_. “You put yourself at risk to help me close this case. I’ll always owe you for that, Kurusu-kun. And now,” she concludes, with a satisfied smile, “let’s get you home.”

##

The team is waiting for him when he gets back, and Akira is honest-to-god overjoyed to see them. He doesn’t have to fake the grin that lights up his face when Ryuji literally _throws_ himself onto him, so vigorous that he sends Akira tripping backwards over the threshold he just stepped through.

“Leader!” Ryuji howls, so giddy and joyful and bright that for a moment, the weight on Akira’s shoulders lightens; recedes skyward.

“Akira!” Ann shouts gladly, too joyful to keep Ryuji in check; and Futaba comes bouncing in after her, wrapping her arms around all three. Yusuke gives him a pert, bright-eyed salute, and Haru is crying and Makoto is holding her, and Morgana purrs louder than the engine of the Mona bus, and Sojiro stands in the doorway and beams, and everything is _almost_ perfect. Akira’s happy. He is! He’s happy to be here, to hold his friends again and to be held.

But.

He supposes that he did hope, deep down, that someone else might be waiting here, too.

“Now we’re only missing one last person!” Ann says brightly. Akira whirls, disbelieving, heart in his throat.

“She texted me a little while ago,” Makoto says, and Akira’s heart turns heavy, slides down his windpipe and into his gut. “She’s on her way from practice now.”

Right. He’ll be glad to see Sumire, of course. He loves Sumire. He loves all of them.

“All right!” Ryuji beams, once Sumire arrives and throws her hands around Akira’s neck. “Now _that’s_ everyone!” he declares, and he smiles at Akira, and everyone smiles at Akira, ( _and tick tick tick goes the bomb in his chest, tick tick tick tick tick_ ) and Akira smiles back, his mask so seamless that even Morgana can’t see the cracks.

##

The party is fun. It is! It is. It’s… Akira loves his friends. He’s always happy to be with them. He’s grateful for everything he has; for everyone he loves. He _is_.

“Ahh,” Morgana purrs at the end of the night, rolling onto his back and stretching his legs toward the ceiling, and Akira’s eyes crinkle gladly. “Good food, clean sheets… What else could you ask for?”

Akira can’t answer that without breaking. He nods mutely instead. Morgana sniffs the air, and his head tilts.

“Are you okay?” he mews, giving Akira a worried stare.

 _What, you can’t even make your friends feel secure?_ asks Goro in his mind’s eye, crossing his arms with contempt. _What else are you good for, if not this?_

“Of course,” Akira tells Morgana comfortingly. He scoops him up and buries his face in the thick fluff of his belly, ignoring the cat’s yowls of protest. “I’m just tired.”

“Get some sleep, then,” Morgana says, stretching and yawning. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

Akira knows, rationally, that in _this_ reality, he spent last night (and all the nights before) in prison. He knows that he slept on a squeaky regulation mattress under scratchy regulation sheets. By all rights, he should be giddy to be back.

But--

(-- _but Akira also knows that he spent last night warm in his bed,_ this _bed, drunk on the heady scent of Goro Akechi, brown sugar and linen and pine. Akira knows that in spite of the way the wind whipped through the thin attic walls, he woke up warm and tingling and it took him a moment to figure out why; to make sense of the soft angular weight in his arms, the tangle of mousey hair tickling his nose._

_Goro fell asleep in just his boxers (black silk, slick and heavy under the pad of his finger). Goro insisted he’d be warm enough, but when Akira awoke in the strange slippery dark that floats between morning and night, Goro was awake, too, and shivering._

_“Goro,” Akira muttered, his voice gravelly with sleep, and Goro shot him a glare sharp with embarrassment._

_“It’s intolerable,” he said, clear and bright, so Akira could tell he’d been awake a long time. “How do you sleep through this cold?”_

_“Goro,” Akira mewed blearily, lovingly, and he folded his arms and his legs around him and huffed hot breath on his neck. When that still wasn’t enough, Akira crawled out of bed (ignoring Goro’s protests) and shucked off his pajama pants and pulled them over the goose-pimpled flesh of Goro’s legs, and he dug through his shelves till he found a warm long-sleeved shirt and pulled that over him too. And when his alarm blared to life, he woke to Goro in pajamas, his pajamas, too short in the leg and too long in the sleeve, and Akira fell in love with him all over again._ )

“Are you _sure_ you’re okay?” Morgana asks him worriedly. Akira wraps his hands around his own ribs to still the shaking, and he smiles.

“Always.”

 _You’re being pathetic, you know_ , says the Goro in his mind’s eye. He draws himself up to his full height, brushes his tousled hair from his eyes and gives Akira a withering glare. _Pull yourself together. Are you a child?_

 _Maybe_ , Akira grumbles back at him, in the quiet of his mind. _So what if I am? I’m in mourning, aren’t I?_

 _Who for?_ Goro sneers. He strides closer, levels a lingering, disdainful stare at Akira. _Not for me, I should hope. Didn’t I swear I’d survive?_

 _Then why aren’t you here?_ Akira asks mournfully. _Wasn’t I… Didn’t this matter?_

Goro rolls his eyes, lifts his chin haughtily.

 _If you have to ask, there’s no helping you_.

( _and tick tick tick tick tick goes the bomb in his chest,_ ) and Akira clasps his palms over temples and squeezes till he sees stars.

##

Days pass, and Akechi doesn’t come back.

 _Weeks_ pass, and Akechi doesn’t come back. All along the timer ticks away in his chest, and Akira sits on his hands and bites his tongue and bides his time and waits.

It would be easier if he knew what, exactly, he’s supposed to be mourning. Is Akechi gone from the world, or just from his life? Did he lose a loved one, or did he just get ghosted?

 _I certainly know what’s likelier,_ the Akechi in his mind’s eye sniffs. He’s never far, these days.

 _I just can’t understand why you wouldn’t reach out_ , Akira tells him mournfully. _I was so careful not to make you feel trapped, and I… You know what you meant to me! I just can’t understand why you’d leave me like this_.

 _Yes, well_ , Akechi tells him coldly. _You never did understand me, did you_. It’s an observation, not a question.

 _Maybe I didn’t_ , Akira tells him desperately, _but I wanted to. Couldn’t that be enough?_

Akechi scoffs, strides away. The Akechi that lives in Akira’s mind does a lot of scoffing and striding away. If the Metaverse still existed, and Akira had a Palace of his own, it would be all cognitive Akechi’s, each more brittle and broken and beautiful than the last, scoffing and sneering and sweeping coldly away. Akira wishes he could visit. It would hurt, but not as much as this.

##

“Cheers!” Ann calls giddily, raising her glass. Akira forces his mouth into a curve and clinks his glass against hers. Of course he notices the way her face falls, a little. Akira notices everything. What else is he good for?

“Cheers!” Ryuji shouts too, so exuberant that Akira’s mask wavers briefly, becomes almost real.

“I’m gonna miss you guys,” he tells them, and means it. “I can’t believe I can’t just bring you home in my backpack, like with Mona.”

“I’ll come home in your backpack!” Ryuji offers eagerly. Akira grins. He’s much too perceptive not to notice the weighty look that passes between the other two.

“What’s up?” he asks wryly. “I’ve got eyes, you know. You guys are all _serious_.”

“ _You’re_ serious!” Ryuji shoots back hotly. Akira tilts his head, smiles like a cat. Who, me? Serious? You must have me mixed up with someone else.

“He’s right,” Ann agrees, to Akira’s surprise. “You’re, like… Hiding something. It was like this in Maruki’s universe, too, but I thought you were just…” She looks away, ashamed. “Mad at me,” she finishes mournfully. “For, like… forgetting you, and us, when Maruki gave me Shiho back.”

Akira’s heart breaks.

“I was never mad at you,” he tells them honestly. “I love you guys. I’m just--”

( _tick tick tick tick tick_ )

“--worried about going home,” he insists, conjuring a pained, vulnerable smile to corroborate the claim. “Even after all we’ve seen and done, I guess I’m still scared of being alone again. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

Ryuji trusts him completely; he’d follow Akira to hell and back, and already _has_. Ryuji folds like wet cardboard, pulls Akira into a rough, painful hug that he’s all too happy to return.

But Ann’s sharp -- she’s the team’s conscience, the emotional intelligence of the Phantom Thieves.

“Nuh uh,” she tells him, crossing her arms fiercely. “That’s not gonna cut it.” And then, after Akira and Ryuji flash her matching incredulous stares: “Don’t gaslight me!! I can _tell_ that’s not it.” Her gaze falls, lingers on her own fidgeting fingers. “ _Talk_ to us, Akira,” she says pleadingly. “I can tell you’re not okay, okay? I might not be smart, but I’m not _stupid_.”

Akira stares at her.

What’s he supposed to say? That he’s in love with a ghost? That he fell in love with a dead man in a time-stuck reality, and now he’s trapped between two worlds? That nothing he touches feels real; that he can’t taste any of the food that he eats, and gets hard every time he walks past a laundromat? That he spends his weekends alone in the alley beside Jazz Jin? That he can’t stop talking to a man who might not even _exist_ anymore?

 _You’re pathetic_ , the Goro in his mind’s eye jeers, leaning over Ann’s shoulder to sneer at him. _If I knew that you’d constructed your mental health over the rotted foundation of our altogether_ dubious _arrangement, I’d never have touched you in the first place_.

Akira’s chest tightens; the hurt knocks the breath out of him.

“And like, that!” Ann says defiantly, startling him. “What the heck is that?? You stare at the air over my head for ninety seconds and then look away like you just got _slapped_! Just -- _talk_ to us, Akira!” she begs. “I know we fucked up last time,” she adds, miserably, “but I promise I’m ready to be better. I want to be a better friend to you, Akira, so just -- _please_ let me try, okay?”

Akira’s chest wrenches.

 _Are you so weak as to rely on your subordinates for comfort?_ Akechi jeers, turning his face away. _I thought you were_ \--

“I’m in love with a ghost,” Akira says, all in a rush, before he can change his mind. Ryuji looks at him like he’s crazy. Ann looks at him like he’s broken.

“Akira,” she says softly.

“I--” Akira gasps for breath, tries again. “Everyone acts like he wasn’t even there,” he says miserably. Ryuji’s face tightens with realization; crumples with hurt. “But _I_ fucking care, even if you all don’t.”

“Of course we care,” Ann says quietly.

“I loved him,” Akira says defiantly, ignoring the way the air hisses from Ryuji’s chest. “Or -- I love him, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t even know if he’s _alive_.”

“I don’t understand,” Ryuji says rebelliously, ignoring Ann’s pointed glare. “How could you… You know he’s a _murderer_ , right?”

“Oh my god, shut _up_ ,” Ann growls at him; but it’s too late, Ryuji’s already broken the seal.

“He’s the only person in my entire life who _ever_ fucking listened to _me_ ,” Akira moans, hollow and righteous and furious. “He’s -- the only fucking person I’ve ever met who liked me because he _liked_ me, not because I could fix him or help him _see himself more clearly_ or work him through his fucking trauma. He wouldn’t _let_ me help him, not even when I begged, because he knew how everyone used me, and he didn’t want-- Didn’t want me to--”

“Shh,” Ann says comfortingly, folds him into her arms; and Ryuji (even torn up and bleeding and taut with hurt as he is) follows suit, folds his arms around Akira’s shoulders and squeezes till it hurts. “I’m sorry,” Ann tells him, petting his back as he sobs raggedly, drenches her shoulder with the salt of his hurt. “Shh, Akira, I’m so sorry, I know, I know, it’s not fair, it’s not fucking fair, I know.”

Akira can’t _breathe_ from the hurt, he can’t breathe he _can’t fucking breathe_. He can feel his breastbone dip raggedly in and out but behind it the hole in his chest yawns so big and dark that it threatens to _swallow_ him and it hurts, it fucking _hurts_. All he can do is rock and breathe and rock and breathe and dash himself open against the solidity of Ann’s devotion, Ryuji’s loyalty. All he can do is tear away his own overstretched skin and stomp on the raw ragged meat that used to be his heart until he’s too fucking tired and hollow to care.

Ann and Ryuji stay the night. Ann and Ryuji sleep curled around him like twin parentheses, holding him so tight that he can almost believe that maybe he’s still alive, after all; that his body isn’t just jerking forward out of muscle memory and a vacant sense of duty.

The Goro in his mind’s eye sits at the foot of his bed, casts a glare over his shoulder that is half-contempt, half-envy.

 _You’ve always carried the hurt of others_ , he observes, with only a trace of bitterness. _Ingrates. It’s only right they should carry yours. It’s the least you deserve_.

##

Akira doesn’t want to go home.

No, it’s not that. Akira doesn’t give a solitary shit about going home. But desperately, urgently, frantically, Akira doesn’t want to leave Tokyo.

He knows it’s not for long. He’s got one more year of high school, and then he can apply to college wherever he wants. One more year before he can move into a cluttered flat with Ryuji, with a pull-out couch where Ann can sleep when she’s working in town. One more year of this pointless _bullshit_ before Akira can be with the people he loves.

But… if Akira leaves Leblanc, how will Akechi know where to find him?

 _Simpleton_ , the Akechi in his head sneers, from across the aisle. He crosses his legs and looks out the train window, utterly without interest. _Who do you think I am? I’m a detective, you faithless cretin. I could find you anywhere. I’d simply have to_ want _to._

 _Well_ , Akira tells him sullenly, _I wish you’d want to. I think I’m really going off the deep end, without you_.

 _Sounds like a personal problem_ , cognitive Akechi sighs. _Talk to a therapist, not your ex-boyfriend_.

The train screeches to life; shudders and hisses and belches hot steam into the cold morning air. We’re really leaving, Akira thinks numbly.

“We’ll be all right,” Morgana tells him comfortingly, thrusting his fuzzy head out of Akira’s backpack. Then, suspiciously: “You did tell your parents you’re bringing me, right? I’ve never met someone’s parents before.”

“We _lived_ with someone’s parent,” Akira snickers. He’s adopted a habit of holding his phone to his ear when he talks to Morgana, to stave off the judgmental stares of passing strangers. “All year, you dumb cat.”

“What?” Mona’s ears flick with astoundment. “Who?”

“ _Sojiro_ ,” Akira tells him. “Futaba’s dad? And like… basically mine?”

“Oh, yeah.” Morgana licks his paw and draws it over his ear. “Well, Boss definitely loved me. So I’m sure your other parents will too! Besides, who _wouldn’t--_ ”

In the corner of his eye, Akira sees a flash of black and tan on the train platform, there and gone too fast for his eye to make sense of. Against all logic, he feels a flicker of something like _hope_ burst like a firework in his chest. His heart skips. _It can’t be_.

 _Oh, can’t it?_ asks the voice in his head, all wry, imperious derision; and Akira springs to his feet.

“Ehh?” Morgana squawks, as Akira sweeps him into his bag. “What are you -- we’re already moving, you big oaf! It’s too late to change your mind! If you forgot something, you can just -- _woah!_ ” he yowls, ducking his head into the backpack as Akira sprints full-tilt down the aisle.

“Joker, _wait_ , it’s not -- it’s too late to -- _Joker_ ,” Morgana wails, but Akira doesn’t care. The train hasn’t gathered speed, not yet; they’re moving no faster than the average city cab, and that means it’s not too late.

Akira digs his fingernails into the crack between the sliding doors and pulls. It’s pointless: his raw, gnawed-to-hell nailbeds bleed a little, but the doors don’t give.

“Ugh!” Morgana sighs, thrusting his head out of the backpack. “I don’t understand, but -- fine!”

He disappears back into the bag and reappears with Akira’s pocketknife clutched between his teeth.

“--ou hneed, _hleverege_ ,” he mews through his teeth, his voice muffled but clear. Akira flips the knife open with one deft flick of his wrist and jams it between the doors.

“Sir,” an officious voice says nervously. Someone must have called the conductor on him, or whoever the fuck, the train cops. It doesn’t matter; Akira doesn’t have time for him. He twists the blade and the doors crack open, just wide enough for him to shove his fingers between them. “Sir, please, it’s dangerous! The train is--”

“Sorry,” Akira mutters -- to Morgana, not the guy -- and with all the strength left in his arms, he _wrenches_ the doors apart. The ground outside is going by pretty fast; the train’s picked up speed since he first leapt out of his seat. Akira peers out, takes an unsteady breath.

 _What, are you scared?_ asks the high, cold voice in his head. _Have you fallen so far in the course of a few weeks? A month ago you jumped out of a helicopter. But perhaps in the real world you’re nothing but a coward._

“I’m _not_ ,” Akira growls, and he jumps.

In the Metaverse, Akira falls majestically, like a leaf on the wind. There’s always a moment where time stops and he floats, suspended, his long coat billowing behind him, for just long enough to flash a cocky smile before he lands neatly on his feet.

But this isn’t the Metaverse.

Before he’s even processed that he’s falling, Akira hits the ground _hard_. He takes the impact on his side, so hard he can feel something crack. He can hear Morgana yowling, to his utmost relief, just a few feet away; he threw the bag in time, then, to avoid landing on his partner. Cats always land on their feet, right?

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of Phantom Thieves. The hit sends Akira rolling, winded, heels over head, cracking his chin on the pavement so hard he fears his teeth may splinter and twisting his legs into a horrible pretzel, till at last he _slams_ against something warm and hard but slightly less-hard than the concrete, and his graceless tumbling stops.

“Are you _simple_?” asks the voice in his head, incredulously.

“ _No_ ,” he mutters to himself, breathless and aching. “Just… desperate.”

God, fucking -- _everything_ hurts. Did he break his leg? Did he actually, _literally_ break his own leg, just because he saw a _black jacket_? Half of _Tokyo_ is wearing a black jacket, for fuck’s sake. Maybe he really is simple.

The voice in his head snickers (Laugh Number Twelve, vicarious embarrassment) and then snorts again. The snort rolls into a chuckle, which swells into a cackle, until the voice that haunts his dreams is actually _wheezing_ with laughter, an unprecedented display of helpless, unfettered mirth, and Akira doesn’t have a number for this one, because in all his life, he’s never heard Goro laugh like this.

“Good _god_ , Akira,” Akechi chortles helplessly. One warm, dry hand alights on his Akira’s cheek, and Akira stops fucking breathing. “I suppose that at the very least, I must commend your aim.”

“Akechi?” Akira asks, his heart in his mouth. He can’t seem to turn his head, what with his ankle hooked around his own neck. The hand draws back, comes away bloody.

“ _Yes_ , obviously,” Goro sighs, from somewhere behind and above him. Getting pelted with a human projectile knocked him off his feet and sent him thudding to the ground on his butt, legs splayed wide, with Akira pretzeled up between them. “And here I thought that I would do you a _kindness_ \-- provide a little reassurance, as a kind of a parting gift. I didn't think you had a _death wish_.”

“ _Akechi_?” Akira asks again. He can feel bright, tingling warmth spreading radially from his core to the ends of his scratched-to-hell limbs, but his brain can’t seem to catch up with his body.

“I said, _yes_ ,” Akechi sighs, leaning forward till he lands in Akira’s field of vision: bright eyes, tousled hair, sharp features. He looks tired, his eyes ringed with purple, a horrible grey tone under his skin, a fresh spatter of acne breaking out on his forehead. He looks like he hasn’t eaten in days and hasn’t slept in weeks, and he’s the most beautiful thing Akira’s ever seen.

“Goro,” Akira says dumbly, grinning wildly. Akechi tries and fails to suppress his smile.

“That is what some call me, yes.”

“Goro!” Akira half-shouts now, more for his own benefit than anyone else’s. “Goro, you fucking _bastard_ , you absolute _bastard_.” He tries to summon anger but it won’t come; there’s no room for it beside all the heady, giddy relief. “You don’t call, you don’t write??”

“Hold on,” Akechi sighs. “Let me just -- assess the damage.”

Akira expects Akechi to brush himself off, but instead he finds two small quick hands moving deftly over his body, bending and straightening his knees and pressing on the sides of his spine, with a strength that would be surprising from so small a man if Akira didn’t know better. After a measured, thoughtful pause, Akechi _pops_ his foot out from behind his head and Akira is free, splayed out like a starfish on the asphalt.

“Goro,” he sighs gratefully, reverently. “ _This_ your idea of a parting gift?”

Akechi laughs, high and bright.

“Is this your idea of a _reunion_?” he shoots back, brushing dirt from the lapel of his oversized coat. “You’ve ripped my favorite coat.”

“ _My_ favorite coat,” Akira grumbles, and Akechi flicks him on the nose.

“I knew you’d be going to pieces,” Akechi sighs, melodramatically magnanimous. “I thought that it might be courteous to assure you that I’d survived -- to provide a little glimpse, in case that in my absence, you’d succumbed to fear and doubt.”

“A _glimpse_?” Akira demands, incredulous. “That would have been enough for you? A glimpse??”

Akechi rolls his eyes.

“What _I_ want has nothing to do with it,” he sighs impatiently, and at last, in spite of the pain, Akira surges upwards; whirls around, flings himself on top of Akechi.

“What about what _I_ want?” he growls. From a half a centimeter away, Akechi flushes.

“I -- _You’ve_ never been particularly adept at making prudent choices,” he says breathily, and then his bright caramel eyes flick nervously up to meet Akira’s dark, certain gaze, and Akira can see him stop breathing entirely.

“Fuck prudence,” Akira says recklessly, and he kisses him--

( _and the bomb in his chest finally bursts, but instead of shrapnel and flames it’s flower petals pattering against his chest, and pine shavings, and the first breath of dawn_ )

\--and Akira doesn’t dare to breathe, because after an initial frozen instant of hesitation and uncertainty, Goro’s stiff form melts against his. Akira can feel one cool hand tracing a line from his temple to his chin, and the fingernails of the other dig sharp crescents into his neck, and Akechi smells like sweat and stress and ash, and his neck is slick with sweat, and his eyes are bright with fire, and if Maruki showed up in a puff of smoke and asked if Akira wanted to freeze time right here, he’d fucking say _yes_ , consequences be damned.

“I love you, you _piece of shit_ ,” he growls, into Akechi’s mouth. “Can’t believe you made me mourn you for a _month_ , talking to myself every night like a _psycho_ you absolute _bastard_ \--”

And now Akechi is laughing too, bright sharp expulsions of mirth.

“I cannot believe you jumped out of a moving _train_ ,” he says, disbelieving. “You _imbecile_. You’d better be more careful with yourself,” he says sharply -- he’s _chiding_ him; it’s enough to make Akira feel fucking _high_. “If you destroyed yourself, I’d be--” (he digs his nails into Akira’s neck, presses till it _hurts_ ) “-- _disappointed_.”

“I’d never,” Akira vows dizzily. “Next time I jump out of a moving train I’ll wear a full suit of armor, if you like.”

Akechi looks at him appraisingly.

“I suppose that I’d appreciate it,” he drawls lazily. “So long as you watch where you _land_.”

“Phantom Thieves always land on their feet,” Akira flagrantly lies. Akechi actually _giggles_ , and Akira’s guts turn to string cheese.

“I…” Akechi says reluctantly, and then mutters something unintelligible.

“What?” Akira asks loudly. Akechi rolls his eyes.

“ _I missed you_ ,” he enunciates crisply, shooting an icy glare into the middle distance. “You worthless, witless, thoughtless, self-destructive _fool_.”

“I missed _you_ ,” Akira tells him desperately, and Akechi smiles. “I’m -- gonna be in trouble,” he adds, anxiously.

Akechi raises an eyebrow.

“Trouble?”

“I missed the express train,” Akira says innocently. “I’ll have to catch the next one, but it’ll take twice as long. If only there were someone to keep me company…”

He looks mournfully into Akechi’s face. After a moment, Akechi rolls his eyes.

“I suppose that I’ve yet to complete my damage assessment,” he sighs tolerantly. “What would I do if you got tetanus and died? Your comrades would never forgive me.”

“I guess you’ll just have to come with me,” Akira says recklessly. He’s got no room left for caution, or hesitation. “To make sure I don’t bleed out on the train.”

“If I _must_ ,” Akechi sighs. Still crushed under Akira’s weight, he pushes himself onto his elbows, brushes dirt from his hair. “Now -- might you permit me to breathe, if you please?”

“Not yet,” Akira says giddily. He leans in closer, presses Akechi’s back against the pavement. “Please,” he says, in a smaller voice. “You can leave me again, if you want; _anytime_ you want, I won’t stop you. Just… Tell me first, next time. _Promise me_ ,” he begs, voice wracked with urgency. “Please?”

“Goodness, but you do fall to pieces when left unattended,” Akechi observes, supercilious and bright. “But,” he adds with a note of reluctance and something else, something nearly earnest: “...I promise,” he mutters, grudgingly. “I won’t vanish without warning.”

“I love you,” Akira tells him, voice cracking with longing. Goro rolls his eyes, but in the bright light of day, he can’t hide his blush.

“I’m happy to see you too,” he allows, barely audible over the wind of the passing trains. “I… suppose that it could be alleged that I missed your presence, Akira-kun.”

Akira’s heart thuds weakly in his chest, like a sparrow’s wings flapping against a pane of glass.

“ _God_ ,” he moans, helpless. “Whatever you’re running from,” he adds, with urgency, “I’ll keep you safe. I’ll keep you safe. I swear it.”

“If only you could keep me safe from _human projectiles hurtling from moving trains_ ,” Akechi counters, witheringly. “Now… take me away, if you must.”

Akira gazes at him adoringly.

“I’ve been waiting a year and a half to hear you say that,” he says, warm and devoted and giddy; he sits up in Akechi’s lap. “Come on,” he adds, nudging at Goro’s cheek with his nose. “I’ll feed you when we get there; and clean you, and warm you, and hear you out, _in full_. For now, though… Come on. I’ll take you home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this could barely be considered closure, but I wanted to keep this fic pretty faithful to the canonical events of P5R, plus everything that I imagined was happening after the camera panned away (e.g. Akira throwing himself bodily out of a moving train the instant he got a WHIFF of goro akechi's presence lmao).
> 
> i strongly suspect that i’ll eventually end up writing a sequel/companion series that shows how everything plays out afterwards — but for now, i think this particular story is at its end. thanks for hangin out! hope you guys had fun :)

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to end this here for the sake of closure, but if you want more, i've already started the sequel! check it out if you wanna see what happens next (literally next, it picks up like... maybe 8 mins after this leaves off): https://archiveofourown.org/works/24225130/chapters/58365073


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